'New law needed' to stop bullying, says charity

Source

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/11746126

Summary

The charity says that there is a need for a Cyber bullying Act and a School Safety Bill that would to protect children who are being bullied trough social networks, texts and other social media and in schools.  Around 750,000 people are supporting this statement in a virtual petition online.

Nick Gibb, the schools minister, thinks there are downsides to passing this new law, because it criminalizes young children for bullying another child. He thinks the problem should be solved in school itself.

Supporters of this new law say that this isn’t sufficient anymore, maybe it is for name-calling, but not when it comes to threatening, steeling, beating and sometimes harassing a child so much that it sees no other way out than to end his life.

Reaction

In this article they take a child who hung himself as an example for why this law should be accepted, but although of course things like this happen, I think it’s an extreme example.  I do think that this is a very important issue and bullying can ruin someone’s childhood, but you need to remember that the children who did this were also children and probably were not out to kill someone and most children are not so unstable that they hang their selves over being bullied.  

I recently saw an American anti bullying program “challenge day”* that they did in a Dutch high school it was very very impressive. I think making children aware of what their behavior is causing and getting to know each other better is a much stronger way to stop the bullying before it is too late.  

* http://beta.uitzendinggemist.nl/afleveringen/984475