Bullying crisis not getting better
For half of his short life, Robert ‘‘Bobby’’ Farrar was teased, threatened, beaten and ostracised. He was bullied at every school he attended for being half-Ma¯ ori, half-Pa¯ keha¯ , or because he was ‘‘the kid that sat at the front of the class’’, his mother, Stephanie August, said.
She didn’t know how bad it was until he hit back at the boys who locked him out of class and made him pull his hair out.
Neither did she realise the effect of the ongoing abuse from their Tokoroa community – particularly an alleged 2015 assault by a police officer from which ‘‘he never really recovered’’ – until July 4, 2017.
‘‘It was a king-hit punch when he died, for us and for everyone, because he was such a beautiful kid.
‘‘I didn’t only have to say goodbye to the 20-year-old son I lost, I had to say goodbye to a newborn baby. I had to say goodbye to a 5-year-old excited to go to school,’’ August said of his suspected suicide.
‘‘The police thing, the bullying at school, it just created this negative side to my son that he didn’t want for us to see and eventually that negative side, that darkness, killed him.’’
New Zealand has the secondworst rate of school bullying in the developed world after Latvia – and more than double the OECD average, according to a 2015 survey by the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa). Depending on the global studies consulted, between 20 and 50 per cent of Kiwi schoolchildren are bullied.
Government data suggests rates of bullying have only decreased 3 per cent since 2013, and a 30-year study indicates bullied children are four times more likely to contemplate suicide as adults. Bullies are twice as likely.
Bullying was first put under the national spotlight in 2007, when the mishandling of a series of assaults at Hutt Valley High School prompted thenOmbudsman David McGee to recommend policy changes compelling school boards of trustees to report bullying and adopt prevention programmes.
In the decade since, the Ombudsman, New Zealand Law Commission, Human Rights Commission, Office of the Children’s Commissioner and
❚ Depression Helpline (open 24/7) – 0800 111 757
❚ Youthline (open 24/7) – 0800
376 633. You can also text 234 for free between 8am and midnight, or email talk@youthline.co.nz
❚ WHATSUP children’s helpline – phone 0800 9428 787 between
1pm and 10pm on weekdays and from 3pm to 10pm on weekends. Online chat is available from 7pm to 10pm every day.
❚ Kidsline (open 24/7) – 0800 543
754 for those aged 5 to 18.
❚ Suicide Crisis Helpline (open
24/7) – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO). Grieving mum Stephanie August
four United Nations committees have repeatedly asked the Government to do the same. A report from the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights released this month raised the same concerns about the prevalence of school bullying as it did in 2012.
‘‘It’s a frustration of mine that over six or seven years now of trying to get action, we haven’t had any,’’ Human Rights Commissioner David Rutherford said.
What little political will there was to tackle bullying had been hampered by fears mandatory reporting would create ‘‘league tables’’ of schools with bullying problems, he said – a claim Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin, the minister responsible for school bullying issues, supported.
‘‘Part of the reason schools don’t tend to talk about this is because then they are stigmatised,’’ she said.
‘‘My vision, and the one I have shared with the Ministry of Education, is that every school will be required to have an antibullying programme that will have an assessment done every year, and that assessment must involve the voices of students.’’
Martin has asked the ministry to investigate its ‘‘capacity’’ to do that and report back by October. However, she is yet to present the idea to Education Minister Chris Hipkins, and neither could say what importance it would hold in Budget considerations.
Rutherford reserved his judgment, saying past ministers of education ‘‘have been very good at saying bullying is an issue but haven’t been making it a number-one priority’’.
‘‘I’m still hopeful, but I’ve been hopeful for a very long time.’’
August, who is compiling a book of letters to her son, said Farrar was ‘‘creative and sensitive’’, a talented musician and athlete, and a dedicated student who completed a diploma in indigenous studies in high school.
‘‘He loved school but at 20 years old he was gone, so what was all that education for?’’
While she accepted responsibility for missing the signs of Farrar’s depression, August said bullying was ‘‘a huge culture in New Zealand and it’s justified through the education system’’.
‘‘Ignorance is no longer bliss,’’ she said. ‘‘Ignorance is murder.’’