Bullying is a repeated aggressive behavior that involves a power imbalance,

where one person intentionally hurts, harasses, or intimidates another person. It can be physical, verbal, or psychological, and can be done in person or online. Bullying can cause significant harm to the victim, including emotional distress, low self-esteem, and even physical injuries.

There is no commonly agreed definition of ‘bullying’ used at the EU level. The Council of Europe defines bullying as ‘unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated or has the potential to be repeated, over time.[1]

o Bullying can take multiple forms:

including spreading rumors, threatening, physical or verbal assault, engaging in insidious practices such as excluding a child from a group to hurt him/her, or any other gestures or actions that occur less visibly.

o Types of Bullying:

Physical: such as hitting, punching, kicking, or stealing or damaging property or belongings of someone else.

Verbal:  such as name-calling, putdowns, mocking, labeling and threatening.

Social:  such as ignoring or leaving someone out intentionally, excluding from a group, or spreading rumors about him/her.

Psychological:  nasty looks, stalking, manipulating someone to think bullying is a figment of his/her imagination.

Cyberbullying: Over the past years, children have also increasingly experienced bullying online. ‘Cyber-bullying’, the fourth type of bullying, is used to describe various acts of harassment, threats, and harmful behavior carried out between peers through the use of electronic media. This may include disseminating videos, photographs, and messages through social media, email, and mobile phones to cause humiliation, such as mocking or intimidating someone through text messages, social networks, or hacking into one’s account.  Specifically, cyberbullying is a type of bullying that occurs on social media, emails, games and other online platforms. Like different types of bullying, it’s a repetitive behavior that aims to frighten, provoke or discredit the target.

o Cyber and face-to-face bullying usually occur at the same time

but cyberbullying leaves a fingerprint and evidence (such as text or voice messages) providing clues to help stop it later (UNICEF, https://www.unicef.org/egypt/protecting-children-cyberbullying).

Every child across the world and in Europe should enjoy the same rights and live free from discrimination and intimidation of any kind.

[1] Council of Europe, ‘Bullying’, (n.d.), available at: https://www.coe.int/en/web/children/bullying#{%2212441005%22:[2]}