Nearly one out of every four students reported being bullied during the school year, and only 36 percent of children reported being bullied—which means 64 percent of students who were bullied stayed silent.
Within the last 12 months around 20 percent of all high school students have considered suicide due to bullying, and approximately 160,000 students stay home every day due to being bullied.
In addition, about 6,078 deaths of people ages 15 to 24 over
a one year time span were attributed to suicide because of bullying.
Most recently, Brandy Vela, 18, shot herself in the chest in front of her family after being cyber bullied for several years.
Currently, there are no federal laws against bullying—in-person, cyber, or otherwise. Laws are set on a state-by-state basis, and they are not even consistent across the United States.
Some states only have policies in place, some have only laws in place and some states have both policies and laws in place.
While most state laws and policies deal with harassment, it is often hard to prove bullying as such because a lot of bullying doesn’t fall into the sub-categories of harassment.
Time and time again police officers say that there is “nothing they can do” to help rectify the situation.
If they can’t find something that is “worthy of pressing charges” the situation goes untouched.
Thus, the bully wins.
As someone who has been bullied I do not care about whether the bully did something that warrants being charged because at the end of the day what does it matter whether the bully is charged if someone already took their own life?
A fine will not bring someone’s life back.
Jail time will not bring someone’s life back either.
So what, the bully is charged and goes on with their life while the victim ceased to walk on this planet?
I ask you again—how is this fair?
The authorities need to take control of this situation because bullying isn’t just an 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. “job” anymore. Children are leaving school for the day just to be bombarded by the same bullies through text messages and social media.
Remember, Amanda Todd?
Todd was a young girl who was bullied relentlessly after a topless photo of her was circulated around her school.
Todd changed schools several times, but she could not escape the bullying.
Eventually, Todd committed suicide, and her YouTube video went viral causing authorities to finally intervene in the situation—people were continuing to make negative comments about Todd even after her death saying that she deserved what she got because she chose to send a topless photograph.
While it is great that the authorities stepped in and found the man behind the social media profile to which Todd was talking—it still does not bring Todd back to life or change any of the negative comments that were made about her.
All of the people who bullied Todd got off without any sort of disciplinary action, and I would be willing to bet that not everyone who bullied Todd was a perfect little angel who always made the right choices in life.
Bethany Thompson, an 11-year-old cancer survivor, also took her life because of bullying.
Thompson’s classmates mocked her for her crooked smile. That crooked smile was the result of nerve damage from her cancer treatment.
Instead of celebrating the fact that Thompson beat cancer, her classmates decided to bully her—leading Thompson to take a gun to her head and claim her own life at only 11 years old.
Words are killing children before they even have a chance to graduate high school.
We need to realize that harassment is not a good enough term anymore, and it is time that the federal law does something about bullying at a national level!
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or log on to http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org. There is help available 24/7.
