Cyber-bullying drives 19 year old student to take her life

Mockery at Chemistry student for having acted in nude video for money ....shoots herself, not being able to bear it

An incident of 19 year old Alisa Funk, a student of Chemistry studying Anesthesia at the university of Richer Falls, Wisconsin, America had shot herself dead, not being able to bear up the ragging aimed at her on the internet. She had thus been subjected to mockery for having taken part in a nude video. Though this is an act which is looked down upon in Sri Lanka too, the dialogue which has surfaced in America by now is whether it is wrong for her to expose her body to a film and earn some money with the intention of paying for her studies without becoming a prostitute.

As reported, deceased Alisa is a young girl who had studied to advance in life, having come from a broken family.

Her father is in prison having been convicted of robbery and her mother and former lover both have been directed to rehabilitation because of drug addiction. Alisa had lived in the protection of her grandmother.

Later, when spending her time in the hostel at Richer Falls University, she had come to know about the website 'Casting Couch'. It happened to be a well-known website featuring naked sex scenes in America.

Anybody interested could add a nude video in which one appears on the website and anybody appearing in it is paid a large sum of money.

Those who appear on that website could use a different name and because of poverty Alisa had thought of joining this website and had thus contributed a naked video of hers for the purpose of earning some money. In this video she had appeared under the pseudonym Stella Anne.

Shortly after she released the video to the internet, friends of the school where she was pursuing her advanced studies were suspicious that it was Alisa who was appearing in the video. They had then made inquiries about it in the Facebook and Twitter and in a few days' time a host of criticism began to be bombarded at her in a serious manner. Most of them began to accuse her labelling her as a prostitute. It was on that occasion that she began to think about herself respect over and over again.  It was later that she began to realise the gravity of what she had done even though it was done with the motive of earning money.

It was because of that that finally she had bought a weapon after 2 weeks and had gone to an area close to a lake and committed suicide by shooting herself.

Her mother who gave evidence said that her daughter had always spent her time in a disappointed attitude because of family problems and that she also was suffering from depression.

a debate has now cropped up as to whether she died as a result of ragging and mockery of her friends over the internet or because she was a participant of an anti-social act whereby she became isolated.

Video which describes this incident, from BELOW