Geisha Kow­lessar

The in­tro­duc­tion of cell­phones and lap­tops in our na­tion's schools has been laud­ed as a mod­ern thrust in­to the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, but these de­vices are be­ing used as weapons of cy­ber bul­ly­ing. Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) Zena Ra­matali said based on re­ports every oth­er day a child is cy­ber bul­lied by oth­er stu­dents.

"Based on our re­ports, cy­ber bul­ly­ing is on the in­crease be­cause every oth­er day you are see­ing some­thing on-line.

"Stu­dents have re­ceived re­ports of threats on-line and via text mes­sages from oth­er stu­dents. "We al­so have stu­dents who know how to break in­to an­oth­er stu­dent's ac­count. In oth­er in­stances they tar­get oth­er stu­dents by cir­cu­lat­ing sex­u­al­ly sug­ges­tive pho­tos," Ra­matali said. The prob­lem, she said, stemmed from pri­ma­ry school since pupils were al­lowed to car­ry cell­phones to school. Up­on leav­ing the pri­ma­ry schools and en­ter­ing in­to the sec­ondary school sys­tem, the prob­lem spi­ralled, Ra­matali added.

Na­tion­al bul­ly­ing pol­i­cy

Call­ing on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to im­ple­ment a bul­ly­ing-pre­ven­tion pol­i­cy in schools through­out T&T, Ra­matali warned that if the is­sue is not tack­led im­me­di­ate­ly, cy­ber bul­ly­ing could have far-reach­ing con­se­quences, one of which could be sui­cide. Ra­matali said prin­ci­pals, teach­ers and stu­dents must be aware of what is cy­ber bul­ly­ing and its con­se­quences. "Stu­dents need to un­der­stand ex­act­ly what they are do­ing and how schools could treat it. "Schools must act and not sweep re­ports un­der the car­pet," Ra­matali stressed. Say­ing cy­ber bul­ly­ing must be dealt with on all fronts, she said it left long-last­ing scars on a child's psy­che.

"We have to im­ple­ment mea­sures to pre­vent stu­dents from be­ing mean and harm­ful to oth­er stu­dents be­cause for some of them it is fun," Ra­matali said. Apart from leav­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal scars, Ra­matali said cy­ber bul­ly­ing al­so im­pacts neg­a­tive­ly on so­ci­ety. "It could have far reach­ing con­se­quences for a child en­ter­ing the job mar­ket be­cause it af­fects char­ac­ter. "The is­sue of cy­ber bul­ly­ing has to do with a child's self worth," Ra­matali said. While puni­tive mea­sures can be im­ple­ment­ed she said what must al­so be ex­am­ined are the rea­sons for chil­dren be­com­ing cy­ber bul­lies.

"Does it mean that some­thing is hap­pen­ing to that child at home to make him want to bul­ly some­one else?" Ra­matali ques­tioned. Main­tain­ing that the aim of the na­tion­al pol­i­cy was not to "keep stu­dents away from tech­nol­o­gy" Ra­matali said the NPTA al­ways sup­port­ed Gov­ern­ment's lap­top ini­tia­tive. She al­so called on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry and par­ents to play a greater role in mon­i­tor­ing the use of the de­vices. "We be­lieve it should be man­aged and used prop­er­ly rather than mak­ing some­body else's life mis­er­able or by tor­tur­ing some­body. "Stu­dents must re­alise they have a civic re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as a young per­son and must work along­side with oth­er."

Greater ties with the po­lice

While life skills and teach­ing val­ues in ed­u­ca­tion were im­por­tant Ra­matali said what was ur­gent­ly need­ed was greater ties with the po­lice. "We want the po­lice to look at what is hap­pen­ing once some­thing is brought to the at­ten­tion of the school. "Once some­thing like the post­ing of threats is is­sued the po­lice should come in," Ra­matali urged. Asked if cy­ber bul­ly­ing was preva­lent par­tic­u­lar­ly in trou­bled schools, Ra­matali said it was a prob­lem that was oc­cur­ring "across the board". "There might be 'lit­tle in­ci­dents' in the so-called pres­ti­gious schools, but in the Gov­ern­ment sec­ondary schools some stu­dents see cy­ber bul­ly­ing as 'ma­cho,' or as 'fun' to hurt some­one and as 'be­ing in a cer­tain gang'. "But it is not to say it is on­ly hap­pen­ing in cer­tain schools. There might be in­ci­dents hap­pen­ing in some schools that we would not hear about in or­der to main­tain a good im­age of the school and to main­tain the sta­tus quo."

Da­ta on vi­o­lent crimes at School for the year 2010 and the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1st - May 31st 2011

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Look­ing at the laws

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh has ad­mit­ted that there has been "some de­gree" of cy­ber bul­ly­ing but said an ex­am­i­na­tion of the law must first be per­formed be­fore any pol­i­cy could be im­ple­ment­ed. "We un­der­stand there is some de­gree of it and we are look­ing at it. "But first we have to do an ex­am­i­na­tion of the laws as it re­lates to cy­ber bul­ly­ing then we can move for­ward and told talks with all stake­hold­ers," Gopeesingh said. He said the is­sue of cell­phones in schools was cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of his min­istry since it was be­gin­ning to be­come a prob­lem "of sorts".

"Cell­phones are pos­ing a prob­lem and we have dis­cussed it. "We have a task force on school vi­o­lence. We are look­ing at fight­ing the 'dis­ease' and not mere­ly symp­toms of school vi­o­lence," Gopeesingh said.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Rous­tan Job de­scribed cy­ber bul­ly­ing as a "phe­nom­e­na" adding that it was cause for great con­cern. "We do not con­trol the schools but, we need to sit with the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to dis­cuss ways of deal­ing with this be­cause it is a fight we have on our hands. It is a chal­lenge.

"We have to de­vel­op strate­gies and im­ple­ment mea­sures so that our chil­dren can make bet­ter use of their time and lives," Job said. He al­so lev­elled some blame on par­ents say­ing chil­dren were al­lowed to use their lap­tops with­out prop­er su­per­vi­sion and were be­ing sent to school with ex­pen­sive cell­phones in­stead of "sim­ple" ones as stip­u­lat­ed by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry.

Facts

Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics com­piled by the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch (CA­PA) of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 1, 2010 to the same pe­ri­od this year, 79 crimes were re­port­ed to have oc­curred at var­i­ous schools in the South­ern Di­vi­sion. These in­clud­ed sex­u­al of­fences, rob­bery, ma­li­cious wound­ing, as­sault by beat­ing, fight­ing and in­de­cent as­sault. This fig­ure rep­re­sent­ed the high­est out of the nine di­vi­sions. Cen­tral Di­vi­sion re­port­ed the sec­ond high­est with a fig­ure of 62 fol­lowed by the North­ern Di­vi­sion with a tal­ly of 53. To­ba­go record­ed nine in­ci­dents, the low­est out of the nine di­vi­sions.

What is Cy­ber Bul­ly­ing

Cy­ber bul­ly­ing has been de­fined as "when the In­ter­net, cell­phones or oth­er de­vices are used to send or post text or im­ages in­tend­ed to hurt or em­bar­rass an­oth­er per­son". Cy­ber bul­ly­ing could be as sim­ple as con­tin­u­ing to send e-mail to some­one who has said they want no fur­ther con­tact with the sender, but it may al­so in­clude threats, sex­u­al re­marks, pe­jo­ra­tive la­bels (i.e. hate speech), gang­ing up on vic­tims by mak­ing them the sub­ject of ridicule in fo­rums and by post­ing false state­ments as fact aimed at hu­mil­i­a­tion.

Cy­ber bul­lies may dis­close vic­tims' per­son­al da­ta (e.g. re­al name, ad­dress, or work­place/schools) at Web site or fo­rums or may pose as the iden­ti­ty of a vic­tim for the pur­pose of pub­lish­ing ma­te­r­i­al in their name that de­fames or ridicules them. Some cy­ber bul­lies may al­so send threat­en­ing and ha­rass­ing e-mails and in­stant mes­sages to the vic­tims, while oth­er post ru­mours or gos­sip and in­sti­gate oth­ers to dis­like and gang up on the tar­get.

Signs of Cy­ber Bul­ly­ing

If a child is be­ing ha­rassed or bul­lied on-line, he or she may:

• Be re­luc­tant to use the com­put­er or elec­tron­ic de­vice

• Avoid dis­cus­sion about what they are do­ing on the com­put­er, or oth­er elec­tron­ic de­vice

• Look or ap­pear ner­vous, anx­ious or jumpy when re­ceiv­ing an e-mail, IM or text mes­sage

• Dis­play un­usu­al anger, sad­ness, and de­pres­sion af­ter us­ing the com­put­er or elec­tron­ic de­vice

• Dis­cuss re­venge

• Ex­it or click out of what­ev­er they are do­ing, if a per­son walks by

• Un­ex­pect­ed­ly quits us­ing the com­put­er or elec­tron­ic de­vice

• Be hav­ing trou­ble sleep­ing or have oth­er sleep­ing dis­tur­bances

• Show a de­cline in school home­work or grades

• Have an un­usu­al in­ter­est in self-harm or in sui­cide

• Ex­hib­it un­usu­al mood swings

• Feel un­well with headaches, up­set stom­ach

• Be­come reclu­sive, an­ti-so­cial and/or is los­ing friends

• Be un­usu­al­ly with­drawn or de­pressed

• Not want to be in­volved in fam­i­ly or school ac­tiv­i­ties.

What the law says

Of­fences Against the Per­sons Act

Sec­tion 30 (a) "Ha­rass­ment" of a per­son in­cludes alarm­ing the per­son or caus­ing the per­son dis­tress by en­gag­ing in a course of con­duct such as-

(i) mak­ing vi­su­al record­ings of, stop­ping or ac­cost­ing the per­son

(ii) watch­ing, loi­ter­ing near or hin­der­ing or pre­vent­ing ac­cess to or from the per­son's place of res­i­dence, work­place or any oth­er place fre­quent­ed by the per­son

(iii) en­ter­ing prop­er­ty or in­ter­fer­ing with prop­er­ty in the pos­ses­sion of the per­son

(iv) mak­ing con­tact with the per­son whether by ges­ture, di­rect­ly or ver­bal­ly, by tele­phone, com­put­er post or in any oth­er way

(v) giv­ing of­fen­sive ma­te­r­i­al to a per­son, or leav­ing it where it will be found by, giv­en to, or brought to the at­ten­tion of the per­son.

Sec­tion 30B (1)

A per­son who is ac­cused of con­duct which would con­sti­tute an of­fence un­der Sec­tion 30(a) and which caus­es the oth­er per­son to fear that vi­o­lence will be used against him, and the per­son whose course of con­duct is in ques­tion knows or ought to know that his con­duct will cause the oth­er per­son to fear, com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to a fine of $10,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for five years or on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, to a fine of $5,000 and im­pris­on­ment for six months.