Anti-bullying campaigns raising social awareness in Egypt
Egypt's education sector has teamed up with UNICEF and the European Union to start public and private discussions on detecting and preventing peer-to-peer physical and psychological violence among children.
CAIRO – “I don’t want to go to school anymore,” Maryam Mahmoud, a nine-year-old attending an Egyptian private school, complained to her mother. “All my friends hate me.”
Hanaa Ahmed, Maryam’s mother, told Al-Monitor, “It took me some time to understand that her reluctance to go to school was caused by bullying. I realized later that Maryam’s classmates constantly mocked her about her looks and clothes, embarrassing and scaring her to the point that she hated setting foot in the school.”
Maryam is one of the many victims of bullying, an issue that has become the subject of several collective and individual campaigns in Egypt.
“Bullying takes place at all schools, both private and public,” Ahmed Meseilhy, a lawyer and a member of the Network for Child Protection, an affiliate of the Egyptian Bar Association, told Al-Monitor. He asserted that very few parents are aware of the graveness of the situation in Egypt, which has driven numerous school children to depression and suicide.
