Every year since 1999, on 12 August the United Nations General Assembly has celebrated International Youth Day. Preventing violence against children is a vital means of preventing adult violence.

Bullying among peers or ciberbullying are no strangers to school life and have now gone beyond the school gates, and often burden children’s school lives. Apart from the physical risk, the psychological consequences can be serious: depression, absenteeism and dropping out of school, etc.

The report “I’m not playing that and ciberbullying in childhood”, about the state of bullying among peers and ciberbullying elaborated by Save The Children, reveals that bullying in Spain is on the increase. The study involved a sample of over 21,000 students between 12 and 16, offering a complete analysis of the state of bullying and ciberbullying in our country and gives details related to the different autonomous regions.

Some data:

• One in every nine students feels that he/she has suffered bullying by peers over the last two months.
• One in every seven has been a victim of ciberbullying.
• 5.4% state that they have bullied someone.
• 3.3% state that they have practised ciberbullying.
• One in every three students says that he/ she has insulted someone using internet.
• One in ten says that he / she has threatened another student.

Half of the students interviewed confessed that they had insulted or used insulting language against someone, and one in three states that he / she has physically assaulted another minor. Common methods of bullying over the internet include spreading false rumours, distorting photos of others, pirating other accounts on the network and supplanting someone’s identity.

The study also analyses the impact of gender and age on this type of violence among minors. The results reveal that bullying is more frequent among the youngest and that there is a high incidence of victimisation among girls. More specifically, 10.6% of girls said that they had been victims of bullying by peers and 8.5%, of ciberbullying, whereas the figures were 8% and 5.3% for boys. However, those who actively bully tend to be boys with 6.3% of bullies and 3.5% of ciberbullies, whereas the figures corresponding to girls are 4.5% and 3% respectively.

Concerning autonomous communities, Murcia, Catalonia and the Balearic islands are among the communities with the highest prevalence of children who state that they have bullied or ciberbullied.

The report, as well as acting as a diagnosis, suggests solutions and offers recommendations to prevent and take action to address school bullying.

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