SWEDEN: School sued for failing to stop pupil being bullied

Summary: A school in southern Sweden might have to pay damages for failing to help a student who was subjected to kicks, punches and verbal abuse by fellow students for two years.

[4 November 2011] - The student at a school in Simrishamn, in southern Sweden, had to endure constant physical and verbal abuse from other students at his school.

Apart from being kicked and punched, the boy also had objects thrown at him and his clothes ruined on more than one occasion.

At one point, one of the incidents was filmed and put on YouTube.

The school made attempts to combat the bullying but failed to put a stop to the abuse.

However, according to the Swedish Child-and-Student Ombudsman (Barn- och elevombudet, BEO), the school didn’t do enough. The Ombudsman has therefore demanded that the local authority pay damages to the boy.

The claim of 160,000 kronor ($24,300) is one of the largest in a bullying case in Sweden.

Christer Grankvist, a deputy chairman in the local authority’s child–and education-board, told news agency TT that what has happened is unfortunate and that the municipality has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying.

“The whole process has meant that the school has reviewed their policies and taken step to ensure this will not happen again,” he told TT.

The school has until December 19th to show a plan for dealing with bullying in the future and to decide what to do about the claim.

“My guess is that they will pay,” Grankvist told TT.

Sweden's 'zero tolerance' policy on bullying

[Sweden's] Child and Schools Representative Lars Arrhenius tells Brenda, the threat of lawsuits and serious fines is putting real pressure on schools to deal with the problem of bullying.

“I talk to bullied children every day” Lars Arrhenius said, “today I spoke to two students who told me they didn’t want to live anymore because of bullying”.

Since the Ombudsman’s office was created in Sweden, the number of  reported bullying cases has more than tripled.

Does this signal that bullying is out of control?

The picture is complex. Cyber bullying and sexting have made bullying easy – technologically and emotionally. Reports from the US differ widely suggesting that more than 10 per cent of kids are cyber bullied – while in North Carolina 60 per cent of kids complained they’d been bullied online.

Arrhenius admits that despite laws and sanctions bullying is  still a ‘serious problem’.

“There is an acceptance of violence and bullying in schools – it is accepted throughout society.  Children just don’t have the same legal rights as adults in the workplace.” But he interprets the rise in reported bully cases in Sweden differently. He puts it  down to better reporting and awareness -  a ‘healthy’ sign that students no longer have to suffer in silence: “ I think it’s good because it shows children and parents are aware about the rights they have in school”.

System abuse?

The ombudsman was clearly a god-send to 15 year old Yasmine Gustafsson who has turned her life around since Arrhenius represented her in a bullying case against her school – and won. But out of the 3,000 cases filed so far only a tiny minority have resulted in damages of between $800 and $60,000.

So are Swedish kids abusing the system? You’d imagine that giving kids a free attorney at the press of a button might invite just a little mischief.  But Arrhenius says not:

“There have only been a few such cases. We meet the child, the school staff – we investigate these cases very thoroughly”.

The reason relatively few ‘serious’ cases result in pay outs is because the law is designed to put pressure on schools to implement bully prevention. If a school can prove it took a bullying complaint seriously and took strong measures to stop it – Arrhenius cannot sue.

‘ The purpose of these damages is to put pressure on local education authorities  and companies to give schools the means to prevent bullying’.

Guilty verdicts make popular newspaper headlines says the ombudsman. Schools are named and shamed: another powerful incentive to take bullying seriously.

[Sources: The Local, and Latitude News]

 

Further Information:

pdf: http://www.thelocal.se/37152/20111104/#

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