Research results

Statistics collected by the WHO European Office cover 44 countries of the world. It is based on data from 279,000 children and adolescents from 44 countries in Europe, Central Asia and Canada. According to the results, Nearly 16% of 11 to 15-year-olds will experience cyberbullying in 2022, up from 13% four years ago. “This report is a wake-up call for all of us to combat bullying and violence wherever and whenever it occurs.”WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said in his statement:

• 15% of boys and 16% of girls reported that they had been cyberbullied at least once in recent months.
• 11 percent of girls and boys reported being bullied at school at least two to three times a month in the past few months; This rate was 10 percent four years ago.
• One in eight young people admitted to being cyberbullied, up three percentage points from 2018.

The UN agency noted: The epidemic has changed young people’s attitudes towards each other.

Virtual forms of peer violence have become particularly important since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when young people’s worlds were moved online during lockdown.
– says the report.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report, which does not provide detailed data, the highest level of cyber bullying was experienced by boys in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Moldova and Poland, while the lowest level was experienced by children in Spain. “Given that young people spend up to six hours online each day, even small changes in rates of bullying and violence can have serious consequences on the health and wellbeing of thousands of people.”researchers say.

Other types of bullying remain largely stable, with only slight increases. The number of teenagers involved in physical fighting remained stable for four years; 14 percent for boys and 6 percent for girls.

Socio-economic status of parents had no significant impact on children’s behavior. An exception was Canada, where young people from less affluent families were bullied more often. Here, 27 percent of girls in the least affluent 20 percent of families said they had been bullied at school, while 21 percent of girls in the wealthiest 20 percent said they had been bullied at school.

Pointing out that this problem is common, The report’s authors call for more efforts to raise awareness of this issue. For example, investing more in monitoring various forms of violence. The researchers also noted that there is an urgent need to educate young people, families and schools about the types and consequences of cyberbullying and to regulate social media platforms to limit the impact of cyberbullying.