6 Out of 10 Students Harassed in Mexico High Schools Laura Poy Solano - La Jornada
go to original June 2, 2014

Even though in 2010 the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) issued the guide to the Safe School Program, which warns about risk factors for the bullying of elementary and middle school students, the act has reached “scandalous” numbers, including in high schools where at least 6 in 10 students have been victims of violence, according to area authorities.

César Navarro Gallegos, sociologist and expert on education matters, indicated that schools have turned into “mirrors that reproduce the social behavior of their environment. If we have children and youths in a context of constant violence, insecurity and aggression, it will be seen reflected in the schools.”  

After the death of a first year middle school student in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, who was attacked on May 14 by four classmates, causing him to be brain dead, the investigator from the José María Mora Institute and National Pedagogical University emphasized that we’re dealing with “very unfortunate [cases] because we confirm that this violence is not stopping.”

MV Note: Sixth grader Hector Alejandro Ramirez Mendez, age 12, died on May 20 from brain damage after being beaten against a wall by four fellow students in a middle school on May 14, in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, a border state where drug war violence has been chronic and recently increased.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Julie Kawamura

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