Portugal's Oldest Helpline Answers for 48 Hours Straight From Wednesday, Because the Men Most Likely to Die by Suicide Almost Never Ring

SOS Voz Amiga, the oldest emotional support line in Portugal, will answer calls without a break for 48 hours this week, from midnight on Wednesday to midnight on Thursday, to mark World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September. Its president, Francisco Paulino, told the Lusa news agency that the continuous shift is "a supplementary effort" that asks "a great deal of generosity" from volunteers, because everything the line does is done by volunteers.

On ordinary days the line runs from 15:30 to 00:30. Paulino says the association would like to open for longer and cannot, for the same reason. "We tend to say that suffering does not keep to a timetable, and it is quite true."

What the calls look like

The line answered 11,000 calls in 2025 and currently takes about 1,000 a month. The average call lasts 20 minutes, though a serious one can run to an hour or more. Loneliness, anxiety and depression are the three subjects that come up most, and they come up at every age.

Callers range from 12 to 80 years old, concentrated between 35 and 55, and split roughly evenly between men and women overall. Underneath that average the pattern breaks apart. Between 12 and 25 the calls are mostly from young women, and it is among young women that suicidal ideation is most evident. Among younger boys, particularly at 12, 13 and 14, the complaints are about bullying and absent family support; many young people, Paulino notes, find it hard to ask for help by telephone at all.

The group that does not call

Above 60 the pattern inverts, and this is the finding the association wanted attention drawn to. Women over 60 are the ones who ring. "They want to talk, to unburden themselves, to speak about loneliness, about family relationships that barely exist. Suicidal ideation is very rare." Men over 60 do not ring. They are also, in Paulino's phrase, on the podium of the suicide figures.

The most recent published statistics he cites put it at 80 male suicides for every 20 female. He attributes the gap to a surviving idea "that a man does not cry, that a man does not show suffering, and then this is the result. By not talking about their problems, the suffering tends to increase."

Officially, Portugal records three suicides a day. Paulino believes the real figure is higher, because cause of death is sometimes recorded as sudden illness or accident, out of stigma, family shame or religious objection.

What he is asking for

Two things, beyond volunteers. The first is political attention to loneliness itself: Paulino argues for a secretary of state for loneliness, pointing to the ministerial responsibility given to it in the United Kingdom and in Japan, on the grounds that loneliness sits underneath other mental health problems and makes them worse.

The second is capacity at the other end of a call. The state's suicide prevention and psychological support line, 1411, created a year ago and staffed by psychologists and nurses trained in mental health, he calls a genuine gain; some of its callers are later referred on to SOS Voz Amiga when they are past the peak of a crisis but still need to be heard. What has not been solved is what happens next. Waiting times for appointments remain long, and Portugal's queue for a first psychologist appointment in the SNS runs to half a year. The result, he says, is a vicious circle in which demand for help rises while the capacity to answer it does not.

"We will never have a healthy country while almost a quarter of the population lives with a mental health disorder."

Where to call

SOS Voz Amiga can be reached on 213 544 545, 912 802 669, 963 524 660 and 930 712 500, daily from 15:30 to 00:30, and continuously from midnight on Wednesday 9 September to midnight on Thursday 10 September. The national suicide prevention and psychological support line is 1411. In an emergency, the number is 112.