Little Sandra happily wears a t-shirt of her favorite team. Dani looks into the distance, as if chasing a dream. Laura smiles with radiant blue eyes that want to conquer the world. And Claudia leaves her blonde hair in the wind, guessing someone she loves behind the camera. All are and are not: their lives have been frozen forever in the photographs that their relatives took in front of Congress this Thursday to ask for a global law against bullying, the “scourge” that these twenty boys, girls and teenagers suffered before committing suicide.
Coinciding with the International Day against School Violence and Bullying, family associations, such as the Barcelona entity Trencats, chaired by the father of the girl Kira López, gathered in front of the Chamber of Deputies to criticize the “abandonment treatment” received by the Administration and make visible the suffering of thousands of victims of this violence in educational centers. “How many children must die? We must legislate now,” they asked.
Around 200 thousand young people between the ages of 14 and 28 commit suicide every year in the world after suffering, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), although experts underline that it is advisable to avoid attributing suicide to a single cause, because it is almost always multifactorial. In Spain, one in ten minors suffers from it bullyingindicates a study by the Ministry of Education published in 2023. The promoters of the protest denounce that, three years after having delivered more than 230,000 signatures in favor of a legislative initiative to curb this problem – there are already 260,000 – the Government continues to fail to adopt concrete measures to protect minors and prevent new cases of suicide.
“Three years of government silence is three years of complicity in harassment,” said José Manuel López, who lost his daughter Kira in 2021, when she was just 15. “My girlfriend did not commit suicide, they committed suicide,” he assured, while insisting on the fact that any minor who takes his own life after suffering bullying —five in the last three years— is another victim of the “inaction” of institutions, legislators and educational bodies.
The relatives of the victims of the crime joined the mobilization called by Trencats. bullying arrived from all over Spain. Sandra Miranda, mother of the young Daniela, who committed suicide in Oviedo at just 16 years old, explained in statements to the media that “bullying kills or leaves lifelong consequences”, therefore “it is not a childish thing”, but rather a problem that must be addressed “with effective laws and protocols”, especially after the more than 1,196 cases that the Prosecutor’s Office identified in its latest annual report. “I can no longer do anything for my daughter,” she said, very affected, “but I come to try to do something for others, so that no one else has to suffer this unjust tragedy that is the fault of those who look the other way.”
More prevention and more sanctions
Lourdes Verdeja, president of the Zero Tolerance association of Cantabria and mother of a young woman who suffered bullying several years ago and who still suffers the consequences today, underlined that “it is not a question of acronyms”, but of “saving human lives”. For this reason, given the “loneliness and helplessness” he felt in his case, he is calling for a law that provides clear sanctions for centers for failure to take responsibility.
Along the same lines, María Ángeles, whose granddaughter is experiencing this situation, came from Murcia to “support” this call for action. “The case of Sandra Peña, the 14-year-old teenager who committed suicide in Seville last month and whose relatives were present at this demonstration, has unfortunately led many children to report it and some centers to start applying protocols. We cannot continue to look the other way: this death must be the last,” he said.
The families of the victims of bullying have formally requested a meeting with the Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, Pilar Alegría, although they denounce her lack of response. The person they will meet for an hour this Thursday will be the Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego, to whom they will convey all their requests.
“We cannot continue to wait, doing nothing, while our children die. Every new suicide is a cry for help that the Government and society ignore”, declared José Manuel López. The Trencats association emphasizes that future law must include anti-harassment protocols with independent oversight, mandatory prevention programs and anonymous and safe reporting channels for minors.
