Dutch alarm over ‘suicide virus’
AMSTERDAM: Macabre text messages among a group of a dozen Dutch girls egging each other on to commit suicide has provided a new twist to the well-documented dangers of modern, instant-communication technology for the young. The revelation by a local newspaper that the group of 12-to 15-year-olds had been texting each other on their phones and computers for months earlier this year has provoked a flood of soul-searching in the Netherlands, a country that is by now inured to reports of Internet sexual grooming and blackmail.
The police were alerted and a team of social workers has been working with the girls, one of whom has been admitted to a psychiatric clinic. The bizarre network grew up following the suicide last March of a girl at a school in Enschede, a city in the northeastern province of Overijssel on the German border.
No comments:
Post a Comment