By: Sukaina Muhammed
There is no doubt that the global technological and digital rising we witnessed in recent years has made the world indeed a small village. Where it facilitated the quality of tasks, summarized communicating in some lines, transmitted events directly audio and video, unified interests, and brought the world closer. However, it has also created an opportunity for bullies to practice violence on platforms and communication sites recently known as “cyberbullying”, targeting everyone without deterrence by any responsible party, which made it increased more and more including all countries without exception.
“Cyberbullying” means when someone behind a screen of a device writes offensive words targeting another person on a social media platform, or sends a message that includes swearing, insults, slander, threats, blackmailing, deception or impersonation with the purpose of hurting the person. Moreover, using photos to make fun of someone’s appearance, or posting and sharing private information about people without their permission. Cyberbullying ranges from identity impersonation, defamation, and electronic piracy through malware programs, having control of victims’ accounts and spying on them, electronic stalking through threatening messages, extortion and deception, harassment, sending offensive and inappropriate messages, or commenting negatively and insultingly, or making fun of posts and photos of people on social media. Unfortunately, Yemen was not spared from the phenomenon of cyberbullying, which has spread overwhelmingly.
The Shabab House platform conducted an electronic questionnaire published on its website and pages in social networking sites, as well as a paper questionnaire distributed to a sample of young people, on the reasons for bullying and the motives that make many tend to use this method against others.
According to the online survey of the “Shabab House” platform, young people mentioned opinions and beliefs as the first reason for bullying, with a percentage of 58.5%, while appearance came second with a percentage of 30.6%, and the rest of the percentages were distributed on gender and age. The percentages of the paper questionnaire were different where appearance and outfits came first by 62%, opinions and beliefs came by 23%, age by 9%, and gender by 6%. On the extent of the impact of bullying phenomenon over the victims and their creativity, 32% of the group included in the two questionnaires believed that bullying reduces the participation of many social media users, and affects their mental health, but the largest percentage of them, 67.2% believe that it does not affect them. Most probably many of them have experienced bullying while participating in the network sites, or they knew a victims of bullying. According to the statistic in the questionnaire, 72.1% believe that they are victims of bullying, while 27.9% admitted that they are bullies. According to the survey, it was reported that females are more likely to be cyberbullied by 64.6%, while 35.4% said that males are the most cyberbullied. According to the questionnaire of those who chose the educational qualification, the percentages were as follows, 78% of them had been bullied during the past three years from 5 to 10 times, and 87% believed that bullying was on the increase, while 92% of the respondents of this student segment were victims of bullying, and 8% admitted that they are bullies. Appearance was the first cause of bullying by 58% among high school students to whom the paper questionnaire was distributed from Shabab House platform, while opinions and beliefs came by 35%, age 5% and gender 2%. In the online survey, 81% believed that bullying is on the rise, 12.2% disagreed with this, while 6.8% were not sure of that. As for social networking sites where this phenomenon is most prevalent, Facebook ranked 70.6% in statistics as the most social platform whose users are bullied.
Bullying is an attitude and behavior.
Nouran Khaled, an artist and one of the famous pioneers on social media said: “I was bullied a lot and repeatedly in different ways, and I still suffer from bullying to this day.” Nouran added, “It happened many times that bullying affected my self esteem, I was bullied for my appearance and also for my actions on Facebook and Instagram.” The same problem is shared by Ayat Thabet, who said to “Shabab House”: “I started applying cinematic make-up work on children’s faces, and I was subjected to a wave of bullying that reached a point where I was attacked and accused of violence, and that I would be a bad mother, which angered me, and I justified this in posts on my Facebook account.
“. Bullies feel inferior.” Actress Fatima Muthana told Shabab House: “A while ago, I posted my picture with my brothers on my Facebook account. My brother shared it on his account, and he received a bunch of offensive comments. The picture became a “trend” for two weeks, and a solidarity campaign was launched at that time against anyone who bullies or offends us.” She added, “Also a while ago, in one of the television interviews, the announcer asked me to sing a small piece of childhood songs related to our Yemeni heritage. Some people bullied the lyrics of the song, as if I was the one who wrote it. They bullied their history, heritage, and the childhood games of their parents and grandparents before they bullied me.” She added, “ to me, I don’t give bullies any value, on the contrary, I feel sorry for them, because they feel inferior, and they attack everything they see or hear as a try to draw attention to them. I am not affected or interested in anything but constructive criticism, criticizing the content artistically. I listen to the right objective criticism in which the critic’s purpose to see and hear a full-fledged artwork with love and passion.
“Electronic bullying increases and limits creativity.” Maha Jalal, an artist, told Shabab House: “A year ago, I created a Facebook page to publish what I draw, and I was subjected to a wave of bullying, insults and slanders; Just because my drawings, as they described, are not suitable for society, as one of the paintings was stripped of clothes, which led my father to force me to delete the page and stop promoting for my works, and as a result I stopped drawing.” Lamia Al-Sharabi, an activist on social media, confirmed: “I write ideas, facilitate discussions about important matters, and discuss youth issues, but there are people who interfere with my appearance, my outfits, or how I speak, and make the discussion personal.” But I don’t care.”
The psychological dimension of bullying:
The psychologist Alaa Abdelhaq told Shabab House, that cyber-bullying is pushing a lot of people to stop doing what they are doing, as a reaction to protect themselves, which results in a lack of or no production.
Dr. Abdulqawi Al-Adani added that “the person who is bullied suffers from psychological, physical and emotional effects because of just a few words that may cause him embarrassment.
This is an invasion of privacy that pushes the person to justify, and it happened that someone from my acquaintance has suffered depression due to offensive comments.”
Al-Adani went on to say that what hurts more is that many of the bullies are anonymous with fake nicknames, and they may bully out of amusement without realizing that their acts may cause psychological, emotional and sometimes physical harm to others. Bullying is a scourge that must be noticed, confronted and eliminated before it expands. Ala’a stressed that bullying may cause anxiety, stomach pain and headaches, reduces or kill creativity, and causes a person to think of revenge, and causes long-term effects such as depression, loneliness, and introversion. It may lead a person to isolate himself and decrease his social interactions with his surroundings, and in the worst cases may lead to suicide.
Bullying among students:
Social Counselor Amira Muhammad told Shabab House that the rates of bullying are increasing, according to her observations in the school where she works. She added, “Bullying affects the educational level of many female students, and many of them turn into hostile characters, and I feel that girls are learning ways of bullying from social media and some series. Aya Muhammad who is a student stated that when her high school result came out, she was excited to share it on her Facebook page, however she was cyberbullied and many accused her of cheating, and demanded her to write in order to prove that her grades are correct. Aya added that those who bullied her were not from her acquaintances who know how much she has worked hard to obtain a merit degree.
Women are prime targets of bullying:
Women in our society are treated differently treatment than men, which is characterized against them in many situations, including cyberbullying that may extend to violence. Statistics indicate that females are more prone to be victims of bullying on social media.
There is less posting of personal photos from the females in our society on communication platforms, and once a girl publishes a personal photo, she is more likely to be cyberbullied and harmed, and the photos may be used inappropriately without her permission. It’s important to mention that females from all ages are attacked whether young girls or adult women including community leaders and university professors.
Dr. Olfat Al-Dabai, Professor of Sociology at Taiz University:, said, “Bullying is practiced by narrow-minded people who do not believe in freedom of expression especially for a woman. They feel they own the guardianship over her, thinking that if they make indecent assaults, it will make her stop expressing her opinions.”
She added, “This society needs to raise its awareness and bring about cultural enlightenment, explaining that the reaction that occurs is natural, especially that the society needs a long time to exercise freedom until it gets used to it.” Al-Dubai continued: “But I support laws that regulate publishing on social media and guarantee rights.
Lawyer Khawla Abdul-Jabbar told Shabab House, that Yemeni law does not contain strict and explicit articles that punish cyberbullying, and that the terminology is still undefined. She added that there is a need for immediate and urgent amendment to explicit texts criminalizing and punishing cyber crimes, including bullying, and stipulating these crimes with up-to-date terminologies. She adds, “In the Yemeni Crimes and Penalties Law, law No. 12 of 1994 includes legal articles such as Article No 292, which states that “anyone who insults another without defamation shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or subject to a fine even if the incident is true.” The problem is that most of the articles mention slander, insults, defamation, or interference in private life without specifying the newly used methods. She added that there must be pressure to amend the criminal law, both procedural and substantive.
Confronting bullying
There were different views on how to confront bullying from Shabab House’s guests. Dr. Abdulqawi Al-Adani believes that confronting bullying must go through a series of procedures, the first of which is changing the privacy settings in the communication platforms, and controlling who can see what a person shares. For others, this does not mean placing restrictions on the use of the internet. While Nouran Khaled believes that her self-confidence and the support of her friends have relieved her of the stress of bullying. She focused more on her works, and she is no longer affected much. But for Alaa Abdelhaq, ignoring is not a solution, as she says: “How long will we continue to be ignored, and in return the bullies will become stronger and more aggressive? Therefore, it is necessary to conduct support and advocacy campaigns for people who are subjected to bullying in order to raise their morale and make them feel relieved, and to encourage people to file lawsuits against those who are subjected to harm. Dr. Olfat Al-Dabai’s personal approach to confronting bullying is to be patient with bullies, and not to pay any attention to what they do, and proceed with clear steps and goals.
Lawyer Khawla Abdul-Jabbar believes that everyone has the right to be able to use the internet safely and that legal awareness must be raised. Moreover some pressure must be exercised to establish rights such as, it is not permissible to attack a person and criticize his appearance or outfits, and that women should not be attacked because of their appearance, clothing or pictures, and that impersonation, blackmail, deception, defamation on social media sites and harming people on electronic platforms are all crimes.
The answers to the questionnaire stated that reporting bullies is an option, and other answers said that silence is more useful at the present time, specially with the absence of deterrent laws. While other answers expressed that with more education, awareness, and standing up with victims, it is possible to confront bullying. However, the option of indifference and non-confrontation approaches can be also feasible in light of the lack of supervision and punishment for the bullies.
Translated by: Sahar Hassan
