Foxconn Chairman Calls in Exorcist to End Suicides
As Foxconn's suicide cluster continues, the company is desperate to have the death toll remain where it is.
Foxconn has been experiencing a wave of suicides, with a total of eight employees taking their lives since the beginning of the year. A ninth incident, which took place yesterday, and saw a man with several knife wounds fall from a seventh-floor window of one of Foxconn’s dormitories, has not been confirmed as a suicide.
With so many people working for Foxconn (roughly 400,000 work at the Longhua plant alone), some have tried to explain away the suicides as statistically normal. However, the Telegraph newspaper cites Foxconn as saying it has prevented a further 30 suicide attempts in the last three weeks alone.
Though a weapon was found at the scene of the most recent incident, it seems many of the suicide victims have jumped from dormitories, leading to suspicions as to how the 21-year-old man died. Foxconn is said to be desperate to stop the suicide cluster from continuing and according to a DigiTimes report dated last week, Chinese media says chairman of the company Terry Guo has sought the aid of an exorcist to try and put an end to the tragedies.
While unusual, suicide clusters, when the notion of suicide spreads throughout a group of people, are not unheard of. In 2007/2008 there was a cluster of suicides in a town in Wales, which saw nearly 20 people ranging from the age of 15 to 26 commit suicide. Most of them hung themselves and all of them had a connection to at least one of the others. At the time, media speculated as to whether or not social networking sites had played a role in the cluster. Many wondered if memorial pages set up on Bebo and Facebook had romanticized the idea of suicide and led others to follow in the footsteps of the first victim, 18-year-old Dale Crole.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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azcoyote Underpaid exploited Chinese workers forced to work excessively long hours for minimal pay are offing themselves? Get the Eff out of here....Reply -
twisted politiks lol, romanticize suicide? im pretty sure there's nothing you could do to 'persuade' me into committing suicide. try looking elsewhere, like the work place, or their actual lives. so stupid how everything is blamed on social networking these days.Reply -
gr33nf00t Maybe they think that there's a respawn, or that they'll come back as glittering vampires...Reply -
rooket weird.Reply
shouldn't they be lucky they even have jobs, especially in the tech field? I know a lot of people who don't have jobs and are trying to raise kids and they don't just go killing themselves and they are happy. -
geminireaper rooketweird.shouldn't they be lucky they even have jobs, especially in the tech field? I know a lot of people who don't have jobs and are trying to raise kids and they don't just go killing themselves and they are happy.Reply
The foxconn employees are paid horribly. have to stay on site and work 12+hrs days. -
v1ze twisted politikslol, romanticize suicide? im pretty sure there's nothing you could do to 'persuade' me into committing suicide. try looking elsewhere, like the work place, or their actual lives. so stupid how everything is blamed on social networking these days....or video gamesReply -
bogcotton I'm 50/50 believing these are all suicides in the light of the last guy, with what sounds like multiple stab wounds.Reply
I'm sure somebody has a motive to be killing these guys, and throwing them from a balcony is a very easy way to do it.