Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behaviour among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behaviour is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Both kids who are bullied and who bully others may have serious, lasting problems. Bullying may include physical violence, sexual violence, threats, teasing, social exclusion or other psychological violence. The presence of bullying is often a sign of aggressive or violent behaviour elsewhere in children’s lives and young children may be acting out at schools or elsewhere what they have observed and learned at home. Recent studies suggest that bullying in adolescence and childhood can have worse long-term effects on young adult‘s mental health than being subject to maltreatment during childhood.¹

Protecting all children from violence, including from violence in schools and bullying, is one of the strategic priorities of the current Council of Europe Strategy on the Rights of the Child 2022-2027. Prevention of bullying starts with educating children about the harmful effects of bullying and that their actions have an impact on others. Therefore, the Council of Europe promotes whole school human rights and citizenship education programmes to tackle bullying and violence in schools. These Citizenship and human rights education programmes are based on the principles of the Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights which all 46 member states of the Council of Europe have adopted.

The Directorate of Democratic Citizenship and Participation that carries out the Council of Europe efforts on fighting bullying has created a wealth of tools which can be used in the fight against bullying. These include child-friendly material and educational material for education professionals to use in schools such as the Compasito manual on human rights education for children.

 

 

The film ”Beat Bullying” demonstrates the harmful effects of bullying in a child-friendly manner and how citizenship education programmes can equip children with the necessary understanding and skills to stop bullying.


¹Lereya, Copeland, Costello, Wolke, “Adult mental health consequences of peer bullying and maltreatment in childhood: two cohorts in two countries“ Lancet Psychiatry (2015)