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Bullying in schools _ why school didn’t protect 11 year old child from suicide

May 18, 2015
 
Eter Fangani | Information Center of Kakheti

The well-known fact of the violence among children, so called bullying, took place on March 27, 2015, at the public school in village Old Anagi in Sighnagi district. Schoolmates of the fifth grade student told him that he was adopted. After the physical confrontation 11 year old boy committed a suicide at home. According to the school director Nino Ghvedashvili, she knew that there was a conflict between the students, but because no physical and verbal confrontation had taken place in the territory of school, the school administration abstained from interfering in this conflict. 

What is Bullying?

The term Bullying means physical and/or psychological terror against a child by classmates or other group of children. Person who attempts bullying aims to threaten or subordinate the victim. 

According to the specialists, children often suffer from physical and/or psychological terror from other children. This happens between girls as well as between boys. Most often the victims of bullying are junior classmates. Those children, who differ from the classmates by their religion, nationality, ethnicity, disability or other signs like these, fall into the special risk group.
 
Suicide case of 11 year old child

According to the mother of the child who died in the village Old Anagi, few days prior to the suicide the child told his teacher that he was mocked by others. 

“Two or three days earlier he asked the teacher , “please tell me do adopted and bastard mean same? They call me the bastard.” The day before the tragedy I went to school and told them about the situation, but they didn’t take any measures. The following day the teacher told the child : “your mother is a scaremonger”, _says Eka Chalabashvili. 

According to the parents of the deceased, on March 27 after the quarrel between the children in the schoolyard, the teacher with the permission of the headmaster sent the child home. The school administration did not inform the parents about the quarrel or about the fact that the child was dismissed from the classes.
 
Eka Chalabashvili: “the classmates confirm that Nika was shivering during the whole lesson. If the teacher saw how nervous the child was, why didn’t they tell me? Why the teacher didn’t contact  and tell me about the situation , that the child was very irritated , so I would go to school and calm him down. If they allowed his brother to come with him or, if they called me, I am sure this wouldn’t have happened.” 

The case of 11 year old child suicide is being investigated under article 115 of the Criminal Code, which means bringing a person to a point of suicide. The case is investigated by the Sighnaghi police department . According to the mother of the deceased boy, expertise has proved that the child was beaten before suicide.
 
After the incident, neither the Ministry of Education nor school has contacted the family.

According to the parents, confrontation between children at school of Old Anagi is quite frequent. One of similar incidents happened on April 27 between the fifth graders, they even called the police. This  fact was confirmed in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. 
 
Evaluation by Psychologist

According to children psychologist Maia Tsiramua, the suicide of 11 year old child in Old Anagi is a result of violence between the schoolmates and a result of turning a deaf ear to this problem by the school administration. 

“You can not turn a deaf ear to this type of incidents. In any case the school must react. When you as an adult person, a teacher see that one person is abusing the other in front  of you, how cannot you interfere and try to stabilize the situation? Unfortunately, very often we see that they [teachers] do not have the skill of identification. They can’t even realize that this is a problem and they can’t name the problem. They do not realize that this is  school administration’s responsibility. They are so incapable for these incidents that they do not even know how to communicate, what to do, they don’t know who should be involved in it and that is why this kind of tragic incidents take place.”

- How should the teachers reacted in this situation, what should they have done? 

-It was necessary to restore relationship between these two children, to have mediation, the school, the teachers should have worked with the both parties. They could even involve the parents in this. The school must know who to involve who is the person which should be informed, who should sit and talk about this problem, or where to address. It would have been great if they addressed to a psychologist, at least few teachers should have had meeting and discussed  the problem. The most right thing would have been to work with both children.”

The director of the school of Old Anagi Nino Ghvedashvili says that bullying is something new: “It is being studied by psychologists now and it is hard to recognize. There was no bullying in school in past and nor it is now.” The school director refused to give an extensive interview to the  Information Center of Kakheti.   
 
Statistics of Bullying in Georgia

There is no exact statistical data which defines the incidents of bullying in Georgian Public Schools. The last national research on violence in schools was conducted by the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia and UNICEF in 2007. The research showed high frequency of physical, as well as psychological violence and bullying. It was established that 80% of children have experienced different types of physical and psychological violence. 47% of them experienced violence at school. According to the research the incidents of bullying took place not in the school building but in the schoolyard, or on the road to school. 

Regulation of Bullying in Georgia

There is no separate legislative act which regulates bullying in Georgia. Article 20 of  Law of Georgia On General Education includes a general regulation on violence towards to children at school. According to this article , „violence at school towards children or any other person is inadmissible”. And if the violence takes place, the school shall be obliged “to have an adequate, immediate reaction in accordance to the Georgian Legislation”.
  
The joint order of the Minister of Labor Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia and the Minister of Education and Science of Georgia N152/n-– N496 – N45/n on children protection referral procedures has been enacted from May 31 2010.

According to this order, if  violence on child is detected, school administrations shall analyze the situation on the site and if necessary, inform the police and social service agencies under the procedures.
  
In the present case, the administration of the Old Anagi school did not inform the social service agency about the violence committed against 11 year old child. Accordingly, procedures under this order were not implemented to protect this child. Therefore, in the case of impartial investigation of the suicide, the director and teacher of the General Education facility might be held responsibile. 

Office of Resource Officers of educational System operates in public schools to maintain the public order. One of the main obligations of this service is the following: to act as a mediator between the confronted students, to identify the conflict situation and to resolve the conflict. Since 2013 office of Resource Officers also include the psychological service for victims of bullying.
 
Office of Resource Officers only operates in the city public schools of Georgia. 

Bullying in the world

Bullying is a current problem in the world. According to the researches, in the EU countries, the most of the children (55%) have been exposed to violence from peers, as a result one third of them have injured themselves or have thought about suicide. 
 
Among 28 EU member states with the highest rate of bullying in schools, , the leaders are: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania. Russia has also a high level of bullying. The lowest rate of bullying in Europe is in Sweden. 

According to the 2014 statistics, in USA 70% of teenagers’ daily witness bullying and most of them are the victims of bullying by themselves. 
 
Legislative Regulations Abroad

According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have right to be protected from any kind of violence. State shall take all necessary measures to protect the children from all kind of physical or psychological violence. Also all children have right to free, primary education. State shall provide the school discipline in compliance with the methods that are based on the respect of children’s human dignity. Georgia joined the CRC in 1994.

Legislative Acts against  bullying in schools has been enacted in 49 states of USA since 1999. The schools of Great Britain are obliged by the state to develop the policy against bullying. 

Photo : Eka Chalabashvili, the mother of deceased

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