Akeed: A Rise in Child Deaths due to Accidental Hanging and Suicide with no Media Follow-up

The Jordan Media Institute&rsquo;s media monitor &ldquo;<em>Akeed&rdquo;</em> issued a report stating that 55 children died during the last six years in hanging accidents. At least half of the cases were filed as suicides, but the media never followed-up on these cases and restricted their coverage to the initial news reports. &nbsp;<br /> <br /> The report by Dalal Salameh, tracked media coverage of cases where children were strangled by ropes, wires or pieces of cloth. The report found &nbsp;that the local media covered 62 such cases during the past six years, which resulted in the death of 55 children; the latest was in June of 2015. He was &nbsp;11 years old and was found by his parents in his room, according to news reports, hanging by his father&rsquo;s tie.&nbsp; Just like previous cases, there were no other news reports to explain the circumstances and other details of the death.<br /> <br /> According to the report, the media labeled 48 of the original 62 cases as not criminal, noting that the children hanged themselves with the intention to &nbsp;commit suicide or by accident while playing with swings, curtains, wires, or by imitating TV shows.<br /> However, these affirmative conclusions, according to <em>Akeed</em>, were made in news reports that were published only a few hours after the accidents occurred. There were no follow-up reports on the progress and results of investigations.&nbsp; The media had described 27 of those cases as suicides, with 17 deaths occurring while children were playing. The cause of hanging death of the remaining four children was not identified.&nbsp;<br /> The children were mostly found hanging by ropes, head scarves, or wires that were hooked to windows, ceilings, doors or pillars. Eighty two percent of the cases took place in the victims&rsquo; homes or their vicinity.<br /> The lack of follow-up, according to the report, was not the only professional shortcoming by the media coverage of these cases, but also the very brief articles that did not exceed 100 words and failed to provide the minimum necessary information about the cases. The coverage of cases also differed from one medium to another and often contained conflicting information. Moreover, the news reports were based on non-expert sources, in addition to misleading headlines that confirmed the case as suicides and did not reflect the content of the stories.&nbsp;<br /> <br /> The <em>Akeed</em> report also noted that 32 of the victims were 12 years old or less; 48 of the victims were boys, 41 of whom died, whereas there were 14 girls, none of whom survived. &nbsp;<br /> The capital, Amman, had the highest number, with 13 cases, followed by Irbed and Madaba governorates with 10 and 8 cases consecutively. The lowest number of cases was recorded in governorates of Balqa (1) and Aqaba (2).<br /> <br /> For the full report: <a href="http://bit.ly/1dNNSNf" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/1dNNSNf</a><br /> &nbsp;