Ending the torment: tackling bullying from the schoolyard to cyberspace

“It’s like being caught in a net. You can’t get out if you don’t say anything. If you say something and the net does not go away, it just gets bigger.”

Protecting children from bullying is not just an ethical imperative or a laudable aim of public health or social policy: it is a question of human rights.

Definition

Indeed, bullying and cyberbullying compromise children’s rights to freedom from violence, to protection from discrimination, to an inclusive and relevant education and the highest attainable standard of health, to the right to be heard and have their best interests regarded as a primary consideration in all decisions affecting their lives; and more often than not, child victims feel precluded from accessing counselling, justice and redress, from benefitting from support for their healing, recovery and reintegration. These are rights enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is in force in virtually all countries around the world. Whether physical, verbal or relational, bullying is a hurtful and aggressive pattern of behaviour perpetrated repeatedly against a less powerful victim. It is often part of a continuum, a torment that shapes children’s lives at different moments and in different settings: from the school yard to the neighborhood and increasingly into the online world.

Impacts

The impact of any form of violence on children’s development and well-being is pervasive, serious and longlasting. In the case of bullying and cyberbullying it is also surrounded by a deep sense of fear, loneliness and helplessness.