After Pinay girl's suicide, crackdown on US school bullying urged

Triggered by the recent suicide of a 12-year-old Fil-Am girl, a city councilman in Queens, N.Y. called on the Department of Education this week to mandate anti-bullying training for students and increase anti-bullying programs in public schools.

 

Councilman Mark Weprin (D-23rd) said the suicide of Gabrielle Molina, who attended Jean Nuzzi Intermediate School 109 in Queens Village, was a wake up call “to what is an epidemic throughout the city.”

 

On May 22, Molina hanged herself with a belt at her family’s home, also in Queens Village, after being relentlessly taunted by classmates who called her “slut” and “whore” and mocked her appearance on and offline.

 

The seventh-grader left a suicide note apologizing to her family and recounting the torture she endured at the hands of bullies at her school.

 

One of Molina’s friends also attempted suicide as a result of bullying, and is now receiving appropriate care, Weprin’s office said.

 

“For her (Molina) to feel that she had no other options but to take her life is so upsetting to me,” Weprin said, adding the second girl, who was stopped from taking her life by a friend, attends school with one of his children.

 

Weprin has urged schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott to enforce the Dignity for All Students Act that is intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for all New York State students, and teach students not to be bystanders.

 

“Any middle schooler and high schooler should attend a seminar; a training course, on how to react when the bullying takes place,” Weprin said.

 

He also called for a zero-tolerance policy for bullies with stronger punishment.

 

With cyberbullying becoming more rampant, Weprin said the Council has for the first time allocated about $30,000 to the BRAVE hotline of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which bullying victims can call for help.

 

“Cyberbullying occurs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and to a public audience that gives bullies a false sense of anonymity,” Weprin said.

 

Bullies stay clueless

 

It is more difficult to be shut down by intervention from adults or by the victims themselves, while bullies stay clueless the pain and sufferring their victims have to endure.

 

“On people’s computers...you don’t see the eyes of the kid you’re picking on. You don’t realize how hurt that person may be,” Weprin pointed out.

 

“We should mandate that every middle schooler and high schooler should attend a seminar, a training course, on how to react when the bullying takes place,” the councilman said.

 

“There should be harassment training, like we have, for bullying, to every kid, to say, ‘This is what happens when you bully, this is what could happen to the victim, and this is what could happen to you. And this is the punishment you will receive.’”

 

Among those supporting the measure was Staten Island Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore).

 

Staten Island saw two suicides of teenage of girls in 2012 — Amanda Cunninghman, who jumped to her death in front of a bus after her family said she’d been bullied; and Felicia Garcia, who was also said to have been bullied and jumped in front of a train at the Huguenot Station after school.

 

“Bullying has become one of the worst epidemics affecting today’s youth,” Rose said in a statement.

 

“This abuse, which typically has been verbal and physical, has long lasting effects that can now follow children home through cyberbullying.”

 

Rose said no one deserves to be hurt because of their size, weight, appearance, sexual orientation or anything that makes them unique.

 

“As the chair of the Civil Rights Committee, I am here to say to every who has been a victim of bullying, to be BRAVE, and we’re here with you,” she stressed. - Filipino Reporter