News & Politics - 12-year-old girl kills self over poverty

Mavericks · 11-08-2007, 05:55 AM

Quote:

From correspondents in Manila

November 08, 2007 04:20pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
Source

AN 11-year-old girl hanged herself in a Philippines shanty after leaving a letter and diary depicting a life in rampant poverty, newspapers reported today.

The case put a human face to poverty blighting the nation, where nearly 14 per cent of the 87 million population live on less than a dollar a day even as the Government says the economy is on a roll.

"I suspect she did it because of our situation,'' the girl's father, Isabelo Amper, was quoted in the Philippine Daily Inquirer as saying.

In a letter found under her pillow after Mariannet Amper's death, she said she wished only for a bicycle, bag, new shoes and jobs for her parents so she could finish primary school.

"I just want to finish studying and to buy a bicycle,'' she wrote in the letter, which was addressed to a television program that grants wishes to viewers.

An accompanying diary revealed the girl, whose family live in a shanty that has no running water or electricity, felt she had been absent from school for more than a month.

In one entry, she wrote: "We weren't able to go to church because we didn't have any money for transport and my father had a fever so my mother and I had to wash clothes for money.''

The night before she killed herself, according to reports, she asked her father for 100 pesos (about $2) for a school project, but he did not have any money.

Her father said he had been out of a job for several months while his wife worked part-time at a noodle factory, earning less than a dollar a day.

The story was reported on the day President Gloria Arroyo told a business forum that her economic changes were bearing fruit.

"The common people are now feeling the benefits of a growing economy,'' she said, releasing one billion pesos to boost "hunger mitigation programs''.

However, the respected Social Weather Stations (SWS) institute found in a recent survey about nine million Filipino families rate themselves poor, the majority of whom live in the southern Philippines.

Many of those also experienced "severe hunger'' in the past three months, it said.

Anti-poverty coalition the Global Call for Action Against Poverty said its own studies showed the nation's economic growth was not trickling down to the ordinary people, and urged the Government to do more.

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Comment: I am speechless. Her wish of wanting a bicycle is so innocent. This made me realize that I am lucky enough to have a house with water and electricity.

P.S. Other news claims that the girl was 12 years old, while others stated that she's 11.

elisheva · 11-08-2007, 08:44 AM

That's so sad.

Although I have to say the father's quote strikes me as kind of an odd thing to say.

-Kelly- · 11-08-2007, 10:04 PM

That's sad

Hell on Heels · 11-09-2007, 12:22 PM

That made me cry.

migamoo · 11-09-2007, 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elisheva (View Post)

That's so sad.

Although I have to say the father's quote strikes me as kind of an odd thing to say.

I agree, but I can almost understand it. I think he was almost saying "She did it so we could go on easier." Does that make sense?

But yeah, this is truly sad. I can't imagine what it was like to be her, and her courage to do this.

**sunnykerr** · 11-09-2007, 05:41 PM

It's incredibly sad.

What makes it worse for me, and I'm sorry if I offend anyone when I say this because (obviously) I don't wish to minimize her personal tragedy in the least, is that she was one of the "lucky ones." She got to pick how she left this world.

We all know it. Millions of kids die every year of starvation. We've all seen the ads. We all know the campaign.

And that's if poverty-related diseases -- like malaria, tuberculosis, measles, even AIDS -- don't get to them first.

It is ridiculous and appalling that we live in a world where an 11-year-old is pushed to thoughts of suicide because she happened to be born in a country where there is no infrastructure to protect the poor.

Reese07 · 11-10-2007, 05:14 AM

thats so horrible

fetch · 11-10-2007, 03:59 PM

Wow. I don't really know waht to say. This world seems so hopeless sometimes [most of the time]

abw92 · 11-11-2007, 08:31 AM

This is so sad

LittleMilkJug · 11-11-2007, 09:00 AM

so sad, but sadder still is the fact it's not uncommon


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