1 in 3 young people bullied online

Around one-in-three young people across 30 countries, including Bangladesh, India and Myanmar, say they have been bullied online, while one-in-five report that they have skipped school because of it.

These are some of the key findings in a new poll released yesterday by the UN Children’s Fund and the UN Special Representative on Violence against Children.

More than 170,000 young people between the age of 13 and 24 years participated in the poll through the youth engagement tool U-Report. 

The participants are from Albania, Bangladesh, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, France, Gambia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Jamaica, Kosovo, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Moldova, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nigeria, Romania, Sierra Leone, Trinidad & Tobago, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.

Speaking out anonymously through U-Report, almost three-quarters of young people said social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, are the most common place for online bullying.

“Connected classrooms mean school no longer ends once a student leaves class, and, unfortunately, neither does schoolyard bullying,” said Unicef Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

“Improving young people’s education experience means accounting for the environment they encounter online as well as offline.”

Via SMS and instant messaging, young people were asked a series of questions about their experiences of online bullying and violence, including who they thought should be trying to end it, according to the poll. 

Some 32 percent of those polled believe governments should be responsible for ending cyberbullying, 31 percent said young people and 29 percent said internet companies. 

The poll results challenge the notion that cyberbullying among classmates is a uniquely high-income issue.

For example, 34 percent of respondents in sub-Saharan Africa said they had been victims of online bullying. And some 39 percent said they knew about private online groups inside the school community, where children share information about peers for the purpose of bullying.

As part of Unicef’s campaign to #ENDviolence in and around schools, children and young people from around the world drafted a Youth Manifesto in 2018, calling on governments, teachers, parents and each other to help end violence and ensure students feel safe in and around school -- including calling for protection online.

To end online bullying and violence, the Unicef has called for the implementation of bullying and cyberbullying policies.

It has called for establishment of national helplines to support children and young people, advancement of ethical standards and practices of social network providers, specifically in regards to the collection of information and management of data.

The Unicef has also called for collection of better, disaggregated evidence about children and young people’s online behaviour, and training for teachers and parents to prevent and respond to cyberbullying and bullying, particularly for vulnerable groups.