Bullying is a very worrying problem in our country, a scourge that is spreading like gunpowder. News like the one we have known today about too often comes to us nine children who have been arrested in Alicante for harassing a 16-year-old classmate, and five of them for sexually abusing her.
What is happening to teenagers? As the mother of a thirteen-year-old girl, my hair gets on edge when I know this kind of news. Apparently, the situation has been going on since the end of last year. The girl received "usual" insults and teasing by several boys from her school, who also harassed her in social networks.
In the middle of last month the girl reported him to the police and the children were arrested. The nine detainees are considered participants in a crime against moral integrity and five of them are also attributed a sexual abuse by touching at the smallest to which they found in a barrack in the center of Alicante the past bonfires of San Juan.
Social networks, bullying outside the classroom
The girl was harassed in class, but also outside of it, through social networks, what is known as cyberbullying, a route of bullying suffered by one of each children who is a victim of bullying.
Some of his classmates had posted on his well-known social network "his photographs with obscene comments", a humiliation that was affecting his health and logically also his school performance.
As parents, we can't let our guard down, we must be attentive to the slightest symptom that our children may be suffering from bullying. Although our children have not even reached adolescence, bullying is a problem that must be prevented from childhood.
It is also very worrying that in many cases, in the adolescence stage bullying gives way to sexual harassment, where doing it in a group seems to give them more power.
Social networks make stalkers even easier (70% of cyberbullying victims are girls and the main means of harassment is the mobile phone). It is necessary that parents wake up, that we have control of what our children do on social networks and that we are alert of any signal in their behavior that could indicate that they are being harassed.
If you know a case, report
The Police have specialized agents who give prevention talks in schools to raise awareness among students about bullying, as well as to encourage them to ask for help if they are victims of some type of bullying by a classmate.
And a super useful fact that they have released is that if you are a victim of harassment or know someone who is being harassed or harassed by other colleagues, you can inform specialists of the National Police at: [email protected]
