Sunday 26 July 2009

Wave of Suicide Sweeps China's Graduate Class

THE TELEGRAPH: Millions of students will graduate in China this year, but with up to a third unable to get a job the number of suicides is soaring.

July was supposed to have marked the start of Liu Wei's new life.

With more than six million other students across China, the 21-year-old was due to graduate from college this month.

For Miss Liu, the daughter of poor farmers, a degree was to be her passport out of a life of poverty, a way to escape working in the fields, or toiling as a humble migrant worker in a far-off factory in southern China.

But her dream of making the huge leap from farm girl to college graduate will never become reality. Deeply depressed and ashamed about her failure to find a job to take up when she graduated, and consumed with guilt about the financial sacrifices her family had made for her, Miss Liu brought her studies and her life to a premature end by drowning herself in a ditch full of freezing, filthy water. >>> David Eimer in Hebei Province | Saturday, July 25, 2009