Lidia Rahal is a strong mother, but she is terribly worried. For months, she has seen her child fall apart.
All because one day they decided to defend a fellow student at a secondary school in Luxembourg. This classmate was the target of racist insults, and by defending them, Lidia’s child became in turn the victim of a gang of bullies. “It started with insults and psychological violence,” she explains. The bullies ended up “hanging a picture of an animal in the classroom,” and “throwing pieces of paper on the wall saying it was my child,” Lidia says.
This relentlessness ended up shattering her child’s happiness, self-confidence, and even their mental health. “My child had to be admitted to a juvenile psychiatric hospital,” the mother says.
Lidia says that both she and her child raised the alarm several times with classmates, teachers, and school officials.
Finally, after several months, the leader of the bullies was expelled. It was a relief, but it came “too late” because the damage had already been done to her child, who is still scarred by the trauma.
As for the bully, it cannot be excluded that they were able to resume harassing other victims in another schools. After all, there is practically no follow-up of these violent, bullying children in Luxembourg. “They are left in the wild,” as psychologist Catherine Verdier recently told our colleagues from RTL 5 Minutes.
On 29 October, Lidia Rahal tried to get things moving. Faced with what she describes as “inaction at the level of the Ministry of Education,” she addressed herself directly to citizens and their representatives by submitting a public petition to the Chamber of Deputies (the petition can be found here), which will close at the end of December.
The title of the petition is: “Implementation of preventive actions against bullying in schools and more severe disciplinary consequences against the perpetrators of bullying.”
Her hope? That the petition reaches enough signatures (4,500) to force a public debate on the issue in the Chamber of Deputies. But, most importantly, she hopes that it will lead to legislation that will make the fight against bullying a priority in all schools across the country.
A few days ago, Lidia contacted our colleagues from RTL 5 Minutes after reading their series of articles on youth violence (see links at the bottom of the article). While Lidia’s identity has been made public because of the petition, our colleagues have decided to limit as much as possible the information that could identify her child, as well as the school and the bullies, for obvious reasons.
RTL 5 Minutes stress that the goal of this series of articles is not to stigmatise individuals or schools, but rather to “start a conversation about bullying, which concerns all school environments, beginning in primary school.”
By sharing her testimony with our colleagues, Lidia has chosen to break the “omerta” on juvenile violence in Luxembourg. She bravely chronicles her child’s descent into hell and her struggle to help them get out of it. Above all, she wishes for things to finally change. Because, for the time being, the only solution she has found to protect her child is to take them out of school. How many children have to go to the extreme of having to flee school in order to finally feel safe?
Related:
- Youth Violence (3): ‘My son is regularly beaten’ in a ‘rich kids’ school’
- Youth Violence (2): “No child is safe from violence, but Luxembourg turns a blind eye”
- Youth Violence (1): “They assaulted my son”, “I was threatened”, “Where are the parents?”
- Chamber commission: Are youth gangs on the rise in Luxembourg?
