The European Commission has been collecting views on the upcoming Action Plan against Cyberbullying. The initiative aims to tackle the growing trend in abusive behaviours online and to create a coordinated EU approach that will support Member States through sharing good practices, guidance and policies.
COFACE Families Europe welcomes this important next step in the ongoing commitment of the European Union to uphold children’s rights in the online environment by strengthening online protection, amplifying children’s voices, and ensuring early, trauma-informed, and coordinated responses to harm. For many years, COFACE and its members have been working to prevent and tackle (cyber-)bullying. This has been achieved through campaigns, as well as by providing educational tools for teachers, educators and families.
To prevent and tackle cyberbullying, a holistic approach is needed to involve and empower the whole community surrounding children and young people. Families play an important role in this and all family members should be empowered to recognise the first signs of (cyber-)bullying, and to know how to act if it occurs, whether their child is a victim, a perpetrator or a bystander. Families are diverse, and especially families in more vulnerable situations are often more difficult to reach. Additionally, as regards prejudice and discrimination, instances of bullying against children from diverse families remain. Family organisations like those represented in the COFACE network can help to reach these families and provide them with the right support.
COFACE recommends the following key actions to be included in the Action Plan:
1.On prevention and education:
- Member States should incorporate human rights education into school curricula and promote inclusive school environments.
- Member States should incorporate digital literacy and social and emotional learning into school curricula.
- Public authorities in the education and social fields should provide clear guidelines to education institutions.
- The EU and its Member States should invest in training and awareness-raising for parents, caregivers and frontline professionals (including teachers, social workers, health staff and police) to recognise the first signs of cyberbullying.
2.On support and response:
- The EU and its Member States should invest in inclusive, age-appropriate, trauma-informed, user-friendly, free, confidential, sustained support services.
- The EU and its Member States should promote a culture of reporting and positive bystander behaviours.
- The Action Plan should include a stream of family support, including encouraging adequate funding for civil society organisations.
3.On the role of online platforms:
- Online platforms, including gaming platforms, should invest and ensure specific safeguards to protect children and young people from cyberbullying.
- Online platforms must ensure that their reporting tools are accessible, especially for children and young people with disabilities, and age-appropriate.
4.On data, monitoring and evaluation:
- Member States should be encouraged to gather disaggregated data on cyberbullying broken down by age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, socio-economic status and ethnicity.
- The Action Plan should encourage the funding of research on new forms of online abuse.
5.On quality standards and implementation:
- The Action Plan should encourage the drafting of a Code of Conduct for online platforms on how to prevent and combat cyberbullying.
- The Commission should consider setting up a cyberbullying platform which meets to share expertise and monitor implementation of the Action Plan.
- The ESF+ should be used to boost support to families and children on preventing and tackling cyberbullying.
As co-chair of the Child Rights Action Group (CRAG), COFACE has adopted a joint statement alongside 14 other organisations that represent and work on children’s rights. The statement calls for children’s rights to be at the heart of the upcoming Action Plan against Cyberbullying.
You can consult COFACE’s full response to the call for evidence here.
You can consult the joint statement of CRAG here.
