Violent death of young people

A study of 26 countries with the world's richest economies stated that, of the 2,872 violent deaths among children 14 years old and younger in 1993, 1994 were homicides. 73 percent occurred in the USA. According to the report amost 600 children committed suicide in 1994; 54 per cent of them were Americans. Childhood homicide rates in the USA have tripled since 1950, and the suicide rate has quadrupled.

Reasons given for the high rate of homicide, suicide and fire-arms related deaths in the USA are an increasing number of children who are unsupervised or otherwise at risk, a low level of funding for social programmes, high numbers of working women, a high divorce rate, social acceptability of violence, and the presence of more than 200 million handguns in American homes.

In 1993 in a backwater village of eastern Slovakia, a six years old Gypsy boy killed another, a seven-year boy, by stabbing him to his neck, in a game inspired by the movie character Rambo.