Bangkok Post: On-Line suicide spark Thai concern over web-cam

• Published: 7/12/2010 at 12:00 AM
• Newspaper section: News

The live broadcast via an internet chat site of a 24-year-old woman hanging herself has sparked fresh concern over the harm webcam-based sites can have on Thai youths.

Nichakorn Srisawat, of Nakhon Sawan, was found hanging by a bedsheet tied to a ceiling fan in her room at an apartment in Bangkok’s Bang Khen district on Sunday.

She committed suicide in front of a webcam broadcasting over the internet site Camfrog to allow others, including her estranged boyfriend, to witness her death.

The woman’s messages posted on Camfrog’s “ghost radio” chatroom lamenting her failed relationship has led police to believe she decided to end her life after her boyfriend broke up with her.

The tragedy has triggered a fresh round of criticisms over the inappropriate use of the webcam-based programme.

Camfrog made headlines a few years ago when it was found youngsters stripped in front of the webcam or used the site for sex chats with strangers.

A relative of Nichakorn yesterday warned users of online chat services to exercise caution.

“[Online chatting services] have both good and bad sides. One should use them cautiously,” said the relative, who declined to be named. She said Nichakorn was a cheerful woman who had shown no signs of stress or depression.

The director of the Mental Health Department’s Rajanukul Institute, Dr Panpimol Wiputakorn, urged police dealing with computer crime to make sure no footage of the suicide was disseminated online to prevent “copycat” behaviour.

Dr Panpimol also urged parents to pay more attention to their children, especially those who use webcam chat services regularly.

The “ghost radio” chatroom where Nichakorn broadcast her suicide was shut down yesterday, but some internet users reported they spotted the woman’s suicide clip on the internet.

The mental health expert said she did not think Nichakorn had a mental problem. She just wanted to share her agony with her peers in the chatroom.

The suicide rate in Thailand stands at 6.5 per 100,000 people. That is not high compared with other countries such as Japan and members of the European Union where the rate is almost 20:100,000.

Supinya Klangnarong, a member of the internet-user group Thai Netizen Network, said the tragedy should be a wake-up call for society to seriously promote internet literacy to prevent destructive use of the service.

“It is very important to create strong safeguards for internet users through cooperation from all sectors in society to protect internet users from the negative impact of online social networks,” she said.

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• Webcam suicide prompts closure of Thai chat-room [TNW Asia] (thenextweb.com)
• Searching for the off switch (mindhacks.com)
• Police: Man kills himself during live Internet broadcast (cnn.com)
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Washington Post: Ending child marriage helps communities across the developing world

By Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu
Sunday, December 5, 2010;

 

Dhaki is from the southern region of Ethiopia. At age 13, instead of going to school, Dhaki was marrried and tended cattle for her family. Her husband, 11 years older than she, regularly forced himself on her. Her nightly cries were ignored by her neighbors, and she was shunned by her community for not respecting the wishes of her husband.

Sadly, millions of girls worldwide have little or no choice about when and whom they marry. One in three girls in the developing world is married before she is 18 – one in seven before she is 15. The reasons for child marriage vary: Custom, poverty and lack of education all play a part. Boys are married young, too, but a far greater number of girls are affected and it has a much more devastating impact on their lives.

Because they are young, child brides are relatively powerless in their families and often lack access to health information. This makes them more vulnerable to serious injury and death in childbirth – the leading cause of death in girls in the developing world ages 15 to 19. Child brides are also more likely to experience domestic violence and to live in poverty than women who marry later.

Child marriage is just one factor in the lives of many girls and women, but it affects not just their health, education and employment options but also the welfare of their communities. We know that empowering girls is one of the most effective ways to improve the health and prosperity of societies. Child marriage perpetuates poverty by keeping girls, their children and their communities poor.

To realize change, we first need to provide greater options for girls by investing in them and supporting their families. Changing national laws is not enough. Most countries with high rates of child marriage have outlawed it. Lasting change requires local leaders and communities to agree that child marriage is harmful and make a collective decision to end the practice.

Innovative grass-roots programs to end child marriage already exist. From Cameroon to India, communities, humanitarian aid organizations and women’s rights groups are pioneering efforts to encourage investment in girls and discourage child marriage. As a starting point, they are fostering community conversations about the health risks for very young mothers and the benefits of education. Over time, communities are beginning to question traditional practices and ask what can be done to improve the lives of their daughters.

This change, however, is taking place on a small scale, very slowly. We can all play our part in encouraging change on a larger scale. The United States is stepping up: The International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act, legislation that has bipartisan support, was passed unanimously by the Senate last week. This act illustrates how support for securing a just and healthy life for every woman and girl transcends politics.

As members of an independent group of leaders who were asked by Nelson Mandela to use our influence to address major causes of human suffering, we have never been involved in supporting a specific piece of legislation before, but we believe that investing in efforts to prevent child marriage is critical to global development and the achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. We applaud the Senate for passing this forward-looking legislation and urge the House of Representatives to follow suit.

We know that these efforts can have real impact. We are pleased to report that Dhaki received support from a local development program that enabled her to leave her husband and continue her education. She now teaches others about the risks of early marriage and the benefits of going to school. The United States has the opportunity to help millions of girls like Dhaki realize a different future for themselves and their daughters, and in the process, transform entire communities worldwide.

Mary Robinson is a former president of Ireland. Desmond Tutu, the recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. Both are members of The Elders, a group of global leaders focusing on conflict and humanitarian issues.

Related Articles

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• Child marriage: our commitment to ending it | Jimmy Carter | Fernando Henrique Cardoso (guardian.co.uk)
• Tell Congress to Stop Child Marriage Around the World (humantrafficking.change.org)
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Washington Post: FTC proposes new guidelines for collecting debt from dead people

By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2010; 12:59 AM

 

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to revise the protocol surrounding two of life’s touchiest subjects: debt and death.

Debt collection has become an increasingly controversial practice as more Americans default on loan payments. Government data show the charge-off rate on consumer loans spiked to 6.71 percent during the second quarter – the highest level in at least 25 years. (Five years ago, the charge-off rate – loans written off by their lenders as uncollectable – was 2.4 percent.) Meanwhile, debt collection ranked second on the FTC‘s list of most common consumer complaints last year after not even cracking the top 20 two years ago.

The rise in debt collection has spawned a niche market devoted to recouping money from those who die with unpaid bills. The FTC began investigating the practice several months ago and found confusion among collectors over whom they were allowed to contact and what they could say, said Joel Winston, the agency’s associate director of financial practices.

“The debt doesn’t disappear when the person dies,” he said. “It’s still a valid debt, and the collector can still collect it.”

But the question is: From whom?

The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act limits the people that collectors can contact to those with authority to pay the debt – typically a spouse or family member, and possibly a third-party executor of an estate. But in a proposed policy statement, the FTC said changes to court procedures have widened the pool of those who may be able to pay to include a host of other legal representatives.

Some consumer activists have criticized the FTC proposal as giving too much leeway to debt collectors. In addition, they have questioned details such as use of the word “spouse” vs. “widow” or “widower,” arguing that marriages end upon death. Just whom debt collectors can contact is a particularly sensitive issue because the calls often come during what can be a time of high stress for friends and family of the deceased.

“Presumably we’re dealing with elderly people at the most vulnerable time that you could imagine,” said Richard Rubin, a consumer rights lawyer in Santa Fe, N.M.

Locating those who can pay the debt creates another challenge. Often, collectors may contact several friends or relatives in their attempt to find the right person. Current law allows collectors to only ask for “location information” without revealing that a debt is owed. The FTC is considering relaxing that rule for those who are deceased.

But that could pave the way for collectors to persuade unobligated consumers to pay the debt, consumer groups say. In its investigation of the practice, the FTC listened to thousands of phone calls and found debt collectors often operating in a gray area, Winston said.

“Without actually saying anything inaccurate, a collector can kind of maneuver the consumer into paying something they didn’t have to pay,” he said.

The FTC proposal states that collectors appealing to consumers’ “moral obligation” to close the debt could violate federal law. In addition, it emphasized that collectors cannot imply that those with authority to pay the debt must do so out of their own pockets. All debts should be paid out of the deceased’s estate.

“We are determined to ensure that the collectors play by the rules,” Winston said.

But consumer groups said the language used in the FTC’s proposal is too loose and could have the opposite of the intended effect.

“The FTC should strengthen protections for grieving families and friends, not open the door to debt collection efforts that often aim to exploit the vulnerability of the bereaved,” Robert J. Hobbs, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, said in a statement.

The FTC has extended the public comment period 0n the proposal to Dec. 1.

Those wishing to comment can go to ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/deceaseddebtcollection.

Related Articles

• You: FTC proposes new guidelines for collecting debt from dead people (washingtonpost.com)
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• Jennifer Waters’s Consumer Confidential: FTC takes on debt collectors (marketwatch.com)
• FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of Deceased (smarterotti.com)
• FTC May Weaken Protections, Allow Debt Collectors to Target Families, Friends, Neighbors of Consumers Who Have Died (prnewswire.com)