Posted on 09/25/2005 4:38:16 PM PDT by wagglebee
A 12-year-old Indian girl committed suicide after her mother told her she could not afford one rupee - two US cents - for a school meal.
Sania Khatun lived with her mother in a village north of Calcutta under a tarpaulin sheet provided by the state.
Sania normally ate nothing at school but on Friday saw classmates eating rice and asked for one rupee.
Her mother scolded her and when she returned from work found her daughter hanged from the ceiling with a sari.
"She wanted just one rupee... but her mother could not give her the money due to poverty," government official Nakul Chandran Mahato told the Reuters agency.
'Snapped'
The mother, Jainab Bewar, is a widow who works as a maid in the village of Paraspur, 200km (125 miles) north of Calcutta.
She normally fed her daughter with food she could get from the houses she worked in.
India's Telegraph newspaper said Sania was tempted by the sight of classmates eating puffed rice and oil cakes.
Ms Bewar told the newspaper: "I did not give her the money as I did not have it. I snapped at her when she insisted on it."
She and her sons never earn more than $13 a month combined, she says.
India has seen unprecedented economic growth in recent years but many remain untouched by the improvements.
A recent UN report said half of India's children were still malnourished.
I'm talking about situations that make a person depressed, not necessarily suicidal.
I suppose a few FReepers here might even think it would be okay for her to loot or steal since she was hungry.
I see pennies lying on the sidewalk all the time. kids from the nearby school don't bother to pick them up.
Hell, that's gotta be half the planet's population on any given day. Probably more here in the US where everybody born after WW2 has been conditioned to expect instant gratification.
""Lauralee...why do you keep insisting that you know things you obviously know nothing about.""
People who commit suicide suffer from Depression.
""I'd like to talk to you in 20 years and see if time has softened yo a bit. You're hardened view of life is not becoming.""
You should not talk about things you know nothing about. I said this girl had a medical problem. It's tragic.
That's what I'm talking about, and many of these self-absorbed people eventually commit suicide because "life isn't fair" to them.
Welcome to FR, Everyone Else! (9-25-05)
The last line says it's a UN piece. That alone is enough to question the credibility of the article, along with the fact that the BBC printed it. Composit characters; anecdotal, at best.
I don't have any solutions to world poverty as I, myself, am currently living below the poverty level and doing fine...and no one listens to me, anyway.
I'm sure it'll be wrapped up quickly now that Slick Willie is on the case. Heck, he could've given this kid a couple of rupies. His last fundraiser for this new money laundering scheme netted tens of millions; and he wasn't even trying very hard. ;)
Bill Clinton to Solve Global Poverty:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/11/201233.shtml
Do you have any evidence to support this?
Horrible story. An aspiring Hewlett-Packard service support employee lost.
It looks like "Everyone Else" didn't stick around.
Or if they are married women with children they file for divorce and ride the gravy train.
Look it up.
Forgive me if I'm a little suspicious. Methinks there's something fishy here. It's too pat, too narrative.
Look it up where? I'm not aware of any studies being done linking starvation and depression?
I'll weigh in on this to agree that USUALLY suicide is not a result of poverty or hunger, but of some form of depression or ennui. Suicide rates are usually higher in prosperous places where the kids feel that life has no purpose. It's not necessarily medical, although it can be.
I suspect that what may have gotten to this girl was not hunger but the desire to be like the other children in school, who could pay a rupee for their lunch. Her mother fed her on table scraps brought from work, but that's not the same thing as eating rice with all the other kids. Maybe they teased her for being different. Indians can be very caste conscious.
That's purely a guess, of course.
"It looks like 'Everyone Else' didn't stick around."
They never seem to once you call them on the carpet, do they? ;)
Welcome to Free Republic.
Good point.
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