Fight against school bullying so that the Lucas or Dinah cases do not happen again

His name was Lucas. He was 13 years old. Her name was Dinah, she was 14. The names of these two teenagers resonated sadly in the news feed. Their suicides, at the age when life opens up before them, shocked the whole of France, highlighting acts of school bullying. Whether these facts are proven or perceived, they nonetheless remain unbearable. “Dying at 13”, a documentary by Eric Ellena gives a voice to families, victims and supervisors. To escape the vicious circle of bullying and humiliation.

This is perhaps one of the last taboos that is falling. School bullying is still sometimes underestimated, provoking reactions such as: “It’s humor, it’s good!“, “it strengthens character“. No. Three times no. The repetition of bullying and humiliation, coupled with a group phenomenon, leads the victims to more or less profound trauma, if the acts of harassment are not stopped. . Lucas, 13 years old, and Dinah, 14 years old, despite all the love of their families, found no other solution than suicide.

In light of these sad “news items“, director Eric Ellena gives the floor to the families of Lucas and Dinah, but also to other young victims, who were able to benefit from the help of the educational institution or associations. To understand the mechanisms of the phenomenon and the solutions that can be provided.

Here are three good reasons to watch “Dying at 13”, a moving documentary by Eric Ellena.

Samira is Dinah's mother. Rayan is Dinah's older brother. Séverine is Lucas' mother.

The director collected their testimonies, full of pain and dignity. Through their words, the stages of weakening of the two adolescents appear. The words they heard, the bullying they suffered, the repeated humiliations, in their establishments and on social networks, which led these two young beings towards irrevocable suicide. From the children's first statements to the tragic discovery of their bodies, they tell it all. The flood of their pain prevailed over everything else.

The director does not seek to point out a culprit. He listens. It does not conduct an investigation and does not seek to determine responsibility. This is not the subject of his documentary. Especially since Dinah's family is still in the middle of a legal battle to have the acts of harassment recognized.

. With the families, he notes the tragedy to better reveal it and discuss the solutions that exist.

Since harassment is fueled by the slightest difference, each student may be subject to the jeers of their classmates during their schooling. Who, because he is too small, who, because he has a bump on his nose, who, because, as a boy, he prefers boys, or girl, she falls for his peers. Or the other way around. What happens next depends on so many parameters that each case is different. Same departures, different endings. So, it’s really a question of tackling the initial causes. These little remarks, sometimes considered harmless by adults, but which affect the self-confidence of adolescents. Nicole Catheline (child psychiatrist,French society, childhood and adolescence) enlightens us: ” [l’enfant se dit] this idea of ​​being excluded from a relationship with another is absolutely terrible. It generates terrible shame. And little by little, with the law of numbers [leur fait penser] since everyone says it, it must be true. And this feeling of exclusion, of shame,I no longer have a reason to live and sometimes that leads to suicide

“. Sometimes.

For a suicide, how many cases of ordinary harassment go unnoticed? Studies estimate that one in ten students is a victim of bullying, or 700,000 children. Two to three children per class.Jean-Pierre Bellon (general director of the ReSiS center) laments: “chow has it been possible, in certain educational establishments, to trivialize insults, mockery, and ostracism? We have come a long way to France. There was a time when we considered all of this to be formative. Of course it's not educational. These repeated insults are devastating.

“

It is a three-step challenge: prevention of acts, listening and early support for victims and psychological help when the damage is done.Elected officials have built a legislative arsenal. A law was passed in March 2022, five months after Dinah's suicide. Article L.111-6 stipulates that “no pupil or student must suffer harassment resulting from comments or behavior committed within the educational establishment or outside school or university life and having the purpose or effect of undermining their dignity, to impair their physical or mental health or to degrade their learning conditions. These facts may constitute the offense of school harassment provided for in article 222-33-2-3 of the penal code.

“. The Ministry of National Education and Youth, then, which strengthened measures against harassment at school for the start of the 2023 school year. It has made the fight against harassment one of its priorities. Thus the pHARe program was born. Which includes, on the one hand, tools and methods to help teaching teams identify and combat cases of harassment. But also on the other hand a listening platform,the 3018

.

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Ewan and Maël recount, with great emotion, the process of support they benefited from. And the return to a normal situation.

And from primary school, as at the Gambetta school in Sèvres in Hauts-de-Seine, other methods can be applied, which involve listening to and respecting everyone's emotions and learning to empathy.Finally, when prevention has not been enough, there are associations such asMosellane Association for Educational and Social Action in an Open Environment (

AAESEMO), who can also provide psychological assistance to small victims.“Die at 13

“, a documentary by Éric Ellena to watch in its entirety here.