Brazil’s police investigate collective suicide invitations in Fortaleza schools

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Civil Police of Ceará has opened an investigation into social network messages inviting students from private schools in Fortaleza to commit collective suicide. The messages began to be shared on November 17 this year.

The suspects have now been identified and inquiries are being conducted, according to the Secretariat of Public Safety and Social Defense.

In the messages, information about date, time and place where the collective suicides would take place was disclosed, according to the Ceará State Prosecutor’s Office. After that, the Children and Youth Prosecutor’s Office opened a proceeding to monitor and investigate the data collected.

The Children and Adolescents Police Department described the event as “an offence similar to the crime of inducement or instigation to suicide.”

In article 122 of the Brazilian Criminal Code, the penalty for imprisonment ranges from 6 months to 6 years, which may be doubled if the victim is a minor. The Department for the Protection of Vulnerable Groups and the Department of Police Intelligence of the Civil Police collected depositions last Monday, November 22.

According to prosecutor Hugo Porto, coordinator of the Preserved Lives Program, information was also requested on how schools are monitoring the messages being spread.

“We have made ourselves available to build strategies to train and qualify public and private agents, to have a more technical approach to the behavior and communication of people or groups, which allows us to recognize those drawing attention,” the prosecutor says.

According to the prosecutor, after the first message was denounced, other publications were shared with the agency and reported to security agents, in addition to contact from other schools reporting the problem.

The absence of control policies of social networks and its unregulated use by children and adolescents can potentiate cases of suicide and self-mutilation, says the chairman of the Union of Private Education Establishments of Ceará, professor Airton de Almeida.

“We see how difficult it is for parents to check up on their children, because they are always busy with their work. Children and teenagers who do not study full time spend the rest of the day on social networks, receiving all kinds of information.”

Furthermore, TV series, online games, and gender ideology also contribute to the spectrum of suicidal behavior, Almeida says. “There’s always something new coming out. There’s “Round 6″, there’s been the blue whale game. This leads to an emotional torture for our children,” the professor says.

The World Health Organization points to suicide as the second most frequent cause of death among adolescents and young people in the world.