With every new semester, warnings issued by educational, human rights, and media institutions about the danger of the spread of violence in schools and its negative effects on children, as well as its psychological repercussions in spreading fear and causing anxiety, stress, and depression, confirm the urgent need to stop this phenomenon and raise awareness among students.
Unfortunately, the 13 year-old Sudanese boy Bilal had a share of this physical violence and discrimination when he was beaten, assaulted, and intimidated by his classmates, so he resorted to the Legal Aid Unit of the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD) to provide him with the necessary legal advice, and who immediately began to plead on his behalf in the juvenile court, after the parents of the children (the offenders) filed a complaint against Bilal (the victim) and his father.
Following the principle of (a complaint for a complaint), The father of Bilal (pseudonym) was convicted of abuse while his son was acquitted. The children who assaulted Bilal were also convicted of abuse, according to Article 333 of the Jordanian Penal Code, which stipulates that: “Anyone who intentionally beats, injures, or harms a person by any effective act of violence and assault resulting in illness or suspension from work for a period of more than twenty days, shall be punished by imprisonment from three months to three years.”
According to article 334/1 of the aforementioned law, “If the acts set forth in the preceding article do not result in any illness or suspension from work, or result in illness or disability whose duration does not exceed twenty days, the offender shall be punished by imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding one hundred dinars, or by both of these penalties.”
According to Article 2 of the 2014 Juvenile Law, a juvenile is defined as “anyone under the age of eighteen.”
In the case of Bilal, who lives in the capital Amman, and other children, experts and academics see that there is a need to create programs to train teachers on non-violent means of discipline directed at children, which are expected to teach children self-control, respect for society, the ability to make decisions, applying justice and equality, learning social skills, empathizing with others, as well as building the student’s ability to deal with difficulties and challenges, and promoting the principle of solidarity and belonging to the school despite the differences among students.
Globally, UNESCO considers in a special report that “school violence and bullying are a major problem worldwide, affecting about a third of school students and taking a toll on their mental health and academic achievement.
The time has come to raise the level of legal awareness and understanding among juveniles, in order to prevent the occurrence and exacerbation of risks, with the importance of confronting violence in schools by the Ministry of Education and advising the various reliable community institutions to increase their legal awareness programs, which would reflect positively on individuals as well as on society, taking the children’s best interest into account.
These stories are part of the activities of the project “Investing in the Future: Improving the Livelihoods and Education of Minority Refugee Groups within Society in Jordan”, launched by ARDD in partnership with Vision Hope International, and with financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, in a step aimed at protecting and assisting Sudanese, Yemeni, and Somali refugees, as well as Jordanians in the most affected host communities, and raising their capacity, confidence, and knowledge by resorting to the competent authorities in case they face legal problems.
