Oh my god. 2011 has arrived and the Foxconn suicide cluster still continues. Today’s latest news is from the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. A female engineer, Wang Ling, jumped from her brother’s 10th-floor flat, not from the dormitory in the factory. Due to her mental state problems, Foxconn could not let her carry on working as an engineer. This is the 15th suicide so far, and the first Foxconn suicide in 2011.

The suicide is confirmed by a spokesman from Honghai. The female engineer, aged 25, committed suicide last Friday (January 7). She started working in Foxconn (Shenzhen) as engineer since 2005. Before she jumped, she was taking sick leave and Foxconn has now sent “investigators” to ask her family and relatives about her suicide.

Wang Chunfeng shows his sister’s employee card and medical record. (Photo from SCMP)According to her brother, Wang Ling had received a company e-mail in her office at Foxconn’s Longhua plant last Tuesday morning that told her to resign. When Wang Ling asked the factory why she was being asked to quit, a Taiwanese supervisor harshly picked on her with insults. The day Wang Ling received the email, she was sent to the Shenzhen Kangning psychiatric hospital that afternoon by Foxconn, and she had a further consultation with psychiatrists at the hospital last Wednesday, before returning to her dormitory and staying overnight. The psychiatrists diagnosed her as schizophrenic.

On Thursday, Foxconn’s line manager insisted on sending Wang Ling back to her family, saying, `Wang Ling is exhibiting a lot of abnormal behaviour’. Wang Ling’s brother also said Foxconn had promised to keep his sister’s position open and let her resume work within three months if she recovered. Less than 24 hours later, Wang Ling jumped to her death.

An officer has eliminated the possibility that Wang Ling was murdered.

Although Wang Ling’s family said they had talked to Foxconn several times after her death and tried to find out more details, Burson-Marsteller, a public-relations firm representing Foxconn, told the South China Morning Post, “We have no report of the involvement of any Foxconn employee in any such tragic incident.” This let us wonder if the Chinese government and Foxconn are trying to cover up the news again.

Wang Ling’s sister-in-law Yang Linying said in tears: “We wanted to find out why my sister, a healthy and happy university graduate, committed suicide.” Yang said Wang Ling had not left a letter or any words before the suicide. What’s more pathetic is that Foxconn had not allowed family members to check her office computer. The family even called Wang Ling’s supervisor after her death, Yang said, “but the man said: `I don’t have any responsibility, and nor does the company’. If you are asking if Wang Ling talked to anybody before her suicide, well, she told Yang: `Sister, I need a mental doctor’. The whole incident is a tragedy.

Meanwhile, we have also found out another female worker from Beijing Foxconn, had been murdered by her boyfriend in the factory. We have no further comments…