Rapporteur calls for criminalising of cyberbullying

A criminal offence of cyberbullying should be introduced in legislation, the Government’s special rapporteur on children has said.

Geoffrey Shannon also called for schools to have a mandatory internet code of behaviour with specified sanctions on students who breach it.

“The reality of the cyber world needs to be acknowledged,” he said, adding that the kind of bullying that can go on in group chats and on social websites was akin to assault in the “real world”.

Speaking to The Irish Times, he said the children at greatest risk of being bullied were often the more vulnerable – LGBT, foreign-national or Traveller children.

There were “various pieces of legislation” that could be used to prosecute those using the internet to harass people, but some of these dated back as far as the 1950s. “Prosecutions using these may not be successful.”

Long-term damage

The impact on children of cyberbullying could be so profound – causing long-term damage to their lives, self-harm and even causing children to take their own lives – that it required a “robust legislative response”.

Schools must be mandated to give leadership on the issue, he said. “The extent of their liability must be examined by every school board of management. School policies should include an internet code of conduct. It should be mandatory that they draw these up.”

In Australia, he said, legislation had been enacted specifically directed at schools requiring that they have a zero-tolerance approach to bullying. He said a child's education was a "once in a lifetime" opportunity to achieve the skills and qualifications necessary to flourish in life. "If that is interrupted or if children drop out, the consequences can be devastating. If a child's schooling is interrupted because of cyberbullying it may be very difficult for them to re-engage with the school system effectively."

He said parents must also educate themselves as to the potential risks to their children online. He called for the Sexual Offences Bill, which will address such issues as grooming and sexual predation via the internet, to be enacted “as a priority” as soon as the next government takes office.