Rabat – Morocco, France, Mexico, and UNESCO signed on Thursday, November 4, a new declaration to address school bullying and cyberbullying named “Campeche Declaration for the prevention of violence and bullying at school.”
The declaration aims to eradicate bullying from educational institutions by 2027.
The meeting of the UNESCO Associated Schools Network in Mexico was chaired by the Mexican Minister of Education Delfina Gomez, the Governor of Campeche, Layda Sansores, as well as the Ambassadors of Morocco, France and Qatar.
The Declaration was adopted on the sidelines of the International Day against Violence and Bullying in Schools, including CyberBullying, jointly organized by Mexico’s Ministry of Education and the Mexican Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO, in the southern Mexican city of Campeche.
Several other international experts and representatives from NGOs attended the inauguration of the meeting, including the Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay, France’s first lady Brigitte Macron and the French Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer.
Moroccan Ambassador to Mexico City Abdelfattah Lebbar delivered a speech where he welcomed the initiative to find joint solutions to curb the phenomenon of school bullying.
Director of Cooperation and Promotion of Private School Education Aziz Nahya also took part in this event through a pre-recorded video in which he highlighted Morocco’s implemented projects to stop violence in schools.
Meanwhile, Sansores urged teachers to check up on students’ mental health and take care of them to build a relationship of trust and support.
“Prevention is everything, because there is no cure for the pain caused by abuse and harassment, a mockery, a contempt is not erased,” Campeche’s Governor Sansores said.
With cyberbullying against women becoming a real issue in Morocco in recent years, Moroccan activists denounced on several occasions sexism and harmful behaviors.
According to a report on digital violence in Morocco issued last year by the Moroccan NGO Tahadi Association for Equality and Citizenship (ATEC), the overwhelming majority of female victims of cyber harassment are schoolgirls and students.
