Bullying is a phenomenon that numerous countries have been suffering from. To define it, this former can be described as the use of a higher or superior authority, power or strength to brutally force others to do things unwillingly. This behavior is often repetitive and can be verbal, mental, or physical, and sometimes even sexual . The victims of such act vary in terms of age and gender, as they can be children or adults, males or females. It occurs in different places whether in work, schools or public places. However, school bullying is the most noticed and frequent type. In Morocco, bullying is increasing each day in most schools. As a result, this issue should be treated as an urgent case because it has bad effects on the development of our students, schools and communities in general. For this purpose, solutions must be implemented to save the children from a prospective danger.
A 16 year-old Moroccan girl in her freshman year from Bismillah school stated “ I was bullied more than once and I had to go through a lot. I still remember everything just like it was yesterday. It was the most painful period of my life. ” She later on, described how she was bullied,” Every time I walked down the hallway I couldn’t help but to hear people laughing at me, they kept calling me words like “ fat”, “potato”, ”fat Amy” . . . they never knew that I was sick and I was taking pills that made me gain weight. ” (Fatima.M). During her high school years, she spent almost every night crying because of the comments and the treatment she was treated by her fellow classmates. Like this girl, other Moroccan students are bullied on a daily basis. They suffer from being called fat, nerd, black, poor and other hurting words and acts that leave ever-lasting scars in their hearts and moments of pain carved into their memory. They are still at a young age, thus such act can easily affect their personalities, growth and mental stability.
Many Moroccans may overlook this issue thinking that it is a normal thing that every student and child has to go through . However, in some developed countries, such as the U.S. , bullying has became a major nationwide issue as it caused several cases of skipping classes, dropping out of school, mental instability, or sometimes it can reach gun firing inside schools or committing suicide. Therefore, if this problem is not taken seriously and into consideration, the actual situation will worsen and we will probably suffer as well. We all recall the example of Meriam, a 15-year-old Moroccan girl who committed suicide after being bullied for living in the slums. “Our community forgets the presence of hundreds of “Meriams” whose lives are ruined because of bullying.” (Nasri Asmae).
Although this issue cannot be solved overnight as it takes time to solve such social problems, some solutions -such as assigning psychologists to schools, achieving cooperation of parents and school staff, or even getting the government to react- should be implemented to face this threatening problem and prevent over reactive measures.
Therefore, the most practical and effective method would be to start with the psychological and educational part. As Jean Jacque Rousseau observed, human beings are not bad by nature so those bullies were not probably born like that, they became likewise by being exposed to some sort of violence. As a solution, psychologists should be assigned to all school in order to help these kids find the main elements that trigger bullying. Moreover, those who are bullied can pay visits to those psychologists who will help them move on and keep an eye on their mental behavior to prevent suicide and violent reactions.
The case of bullying is really a hard case to solve because no one actually can tell what the situation is. That is why the only thing that can make the solutions work is the cooperation of both parts (the school and parents). Some Moroccan parents may say that bullies are ” just kids”; however, looking at the harm they make, and the plans they can come up with, it is clear that they may be young physically but no longer mentally. Thus, inflicting either physical or mental pain to others under the pretence of young age will transform the child to an unmerciful monster. For such reasons, parents should cooperate with the school to save their child from being bullied or being a bully himself. Moreover, staff and teachers should take part, as well, in this by breaking their silence and telling about the scenes of bullying they witness. In addition, they should step out of the shadows and interrupt any act of bullying they see happening.
Furthermore, the government should raise more awareness about this issue by launching sensitizing campaigns on the media such as television, radio, newspapers, fliers, and online. For instance, academic curricula and programs should provide students with information about bullying and its dangerous consequences. In the addition, some laws should be created and materialized to punish every person who is responsible directly or indirectly for the self-harm or the suicide resulting from bullying.
This issue needs a quick move and reaction from all parts so as to avoid falling in the same category as the United States. Some schools there started taking some over reactive measures to fight this problem. But, by so doing, they have taken this issue the opposite way as they exaggerated in taking excessive procedures such as a student can be expelled from school for committing a minor act like teasing. This is all because bullying became a trend there and the staff got confused in defining the real act of bullying, spotting it and making the difference between it and other behaviors.
Pursuing this further, we can clearly see that bullying is an issue that can become uncontrollable once it starts. For such reason, assigning psychologists to schools, achieving cooperation of both parents and school staff, or even getting the government to set some laws, are solutions that should be materialized to prevent a massive problem breakout in the future.
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"How To Prevent Bullying." The Bully Buster. uTip, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.
Hellwig, Erin. "10 Ways to Help Reduce Bullying in Schools." CPI. Crisis Prevention
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Fatima, M. Personal interview. N.d.
Nasri, Asmae. "Bullying in Moroccan Schools." Morocco World News. Morocco
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