Suicides linked to bullied victims Research Paper

Suicides linked to bullied victims - Research Paper Example Many innocent lives have been lost owing to this problem of bullying and these precious lives could have been saved if proper intervention and help was provided for these issues. Bullying can be defined as acts of aggression which tend to humiliate the victim through every possible mean. According to Olweus, ‘A student is being bullied or victimized when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other students’ (Olweus 2001 p 5-6). Thus, bullying is basically a means of degrading a person to an extent that he may lose his confidence and morale and tend to consider options like suicide as the only solution. Different incidents have marked the severity of this act of bullying. Innocent young teenagers have died due to being the victims of humiliation. The examples of Tylor Cementi who was an 18 year old boy and Phoebe Prince who was a 15 year old girl serve as eye openers to highlight the issue of bullying. Tylor Cementi was a bright and intelligent boy who enrolled new in his university. Cementi was a homosexual and his sexual orientation was used as a point to bully him. His colleagues plotted against him and made a video of his private encounter with his homosexual partner. They then posted it on the internet which served to publicize a private encounter of Clementi. The young boy could not face this humiliation and he found it easier to submit him to death rather than face this embarrassment. He jumped off a bridge and committed suicide. The suicide of Tylor Clementi was a tragic incident and it was an example of cyberspace bullying. It left a great impact (Schwartz 2011). Phoebe Prince enrolled new in her school, South Hadley High School  after she moved from Ireland to the United States with her family. She became the target of the bullies and had to undergo severe pressure and mental exertion. She was bullied for three months in her school by different means which include calling her with names as well as physical harassment by the bullies. They used to give her disgracing names to humiliate her. The social networking sites served as another way to further bully Phoebe and to further publicly humiliate her. She finally could not face the pressure and gave up her race of life and committed suicide. Her death came as a shock and it served a great effect owing to the fact her suicide had just shortly followed the suicide of another young boy of 11 years in a school located in close vicinity to South Hadley High School. Serious notice of the incident was taken by the governing body in the state of Massachusetts which started formulating plans for the passage of laws to check into matters of bullying. The school also started to consider the issue seriously and started working towards creation of bodies to tackle the issue of bullying (Eckholm and Zezima 2010). Strong correlations and links between suicide and bullying have been reported. There has been an alarming rise in the suicide rate throughout the world. It is analyzed that amongst youth suicide ranks as the third reason of death. The CDC reports that 4400 deaths can attributed to suicide annually. Students who are enrolled in high school show very high levels of suicide and it has been analyzed that 7 percent of these students have actually tried to commit suicide. A research conducted by the Yale