Bullying has become an alarming threat even in Italy.
No specific law has been issued in Italy at the moment but the already existing laws (Constitution of The Italian Republic, part one Rights and Duties of the Citizens, The Civil Code, The Penal Code) represent an almost complete regulatory mechanism able to prevent and punish the most severe behaviours.
Enter Mobbible’s Convivio to see more about legislation in Italy.
Bullying in Italy has become increasingly frequent: bullying events have become ordinary and the number of victims becomes greater and greater. Sometimes bullying is captured in videos downloaded in Youtube by the same people that bystand and do nothing instead of stopping violence.
Bystanders stay silent or incite the bully during the aggression without intervening.
Several studies refer a close correlation between bullying and depression, bullying and suicidal rate. Bullying-related suicides have soared last year since the number of bad stories and bad behaviours increased, altough institutions, schools and the Police raised awareness through several anti-bullying campaigns.
Victims are always those who can’t defend themselves or who don’t want to collude with bullies as depicted in our latest post “Why Bullying Victims Portrait Is Always the Same“.
Morever, 80% of bullying in Italy happens at schools. Threats, physical violence, name-calling, embarrassment, thefts, mockeries, all these behaviours happen at schools and have as victims people who are the weakiest or the most defenceless of the group.
The ghost of bullying haunts every school and every community.
The shadow of bullying lengthens through the web, by means of cyberbullying, online harassment, compromising photos or false data sharing and other psychological tortures as explained in this post about bullying and cyberbullying in Italy by Metron Antropos NPO.
The tweens and the young tend to escape parental control and monitoring, they go away and take dangerous shortcuts, with less and less brakes, and no positive role models to imitate.
Sport can do a lot in order to make any negative energy turn in healthier ways, in some positive experience, or hopefully in a safe way out.
Other forms of intervention tend to build, enhance and strenghten learning, training or education at schools in order to change culture and habits.
In a recent survey, Skuola.net found that 4-in-5 consider bullying and cyberbullying an ordinary and severe occurrence, while up to 40% of them has witnessed to at least one severe physical or psychological bullying event.
As for cyberbullying, 90% believe that the web is exactly the mirror of what happens offline, in the real life, and sometimes the second is the origin of the first.
The most controversial social network is Ask.fm, taken for granted the resonance of recent severe cyberbullying facts and stories, strictly connected to this networking platform mentioned by 3-in-4 students because of its anonymity and ease to use.
One-in-four admit having been themselves guilty of cyberbully, threatening or victimising one or more friends, while 6% refer having been a systematic cyberbully.
Up to 31% is always connected to social networks, by means of smartphones, tablets, PCs, and 27% has met offline at least someone known online.
Of those, 23% did it by themselves, without informing anyone else, whereas 35% informed their parents or friends.
The web is also used by tweens in order to make new friends: 13% posted photos, video, in a provocative gesture while 17% admitted having done it for money, phone top-ups or other presents.
These are the findings of a survey over 2000 voters aged 11-20 managed by Skuola.net together with Postal Office Policy before launching “Una Vita da Social” campaign.
Time spent over social networks is basically due to their obsession in controlling their own social profiles, or in making new friends or gaining money.
Of those who are always connected online, 45% use social networks because they can save money for phone calls, while 42% repeteadly use them to make new friends.
Only 14% stay online to gain more popularity.
53% of interviewed use Facebook to communicate with their parents. 1-in-5 consider Facebook their main social network and media and 56% believe it’s very useful even if it’s not used to replace phone calls and sparetime with friends.
What is worrying is that 13% of young used at least one social network to send their photo or video for sexting.
The reason is that 17% received the promise of a phone recharge or other presents.
They are totally unware of risks, one-in-four admits having met someone online and of those 23% did it without informing others.
As for cyberbullying, 52,5% declared an excessive attention to it, able to make them feel guilty and overexposed to judgement instead of understanding and dialogue.
And the problem is that they don’t speak with their parents because they are afraid and don’t want to be judged or think they can’t help them and do nothing.
Relaunching families would be an answer to that problem.
Relaunching families means investing permanently in family and resuming love and dialogue.
