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October is National Bullying Awareness Month.
National Bullying Prevention Month 2024 starts on Tuesday, October 1, and wraps up on Thursday, October 31.
This dedicated month emphasizes the importance of recognising, preventing, and addressing bullying in all forms.
While often associated with children and adolescents, bullying can occur in any environment, including workplaces.
Bullying is defined as the intentional use of force, coercion, or threats to abuse, dominate, or intimidate others. It typically involves repeated and targeted aggression, with the bully taking advantage of an imbalance of power—whether physical, social, or positional. This imbalance leaves the victim feeling helpless and unable to defend themselves effectively. Bullying can be physical, verbal, or psychological and often leads to severe emotional and mental harm.
Physical Bullying:
Physical bullying includes aggressive behaviours like hitting, shoving, spitting, or damaging someone's belongings.
Though this form of bullying is more common in school settings, it can still manifest in adulthood and lead to physical and emotional trauma for the victim.
Verbal Bullying:
Verbal bullying involves name-calling, mocking, insults, and threats. It is often used to demean or humiliate the victim, causing deep emotional pain and damaging their self-esteem.
This form of bullying is prevalent in many settings, including schools, social groups, and workplaces.
Social Bullying (Relational Aggression):
Social bullying includes exclusion, gossip, and rumour-spreading, targeting a person’s reputation or social standing.
In workplaces, this can take the form of professional sabotage, isolation from colleagues, or being deliberately excluded from group activities.
Cyberbullying:
Cyberbullying involves the use of technology, such as emails, social media, and text messages, to harass or embarrass someone.
The anonymous nature of online platforms often emboldens cyberbullies, leading to sustained harassment that can severely impact a person’s mental health.
Racial Bullying:
Racial bullying includes harassing someone based on their race or ethnicity.
This form of bullying fosters discrimination and prejudice, making individuals feel unwelcome in social or professional environments.
Religious Bullying:
Religious bullying involves mocking or discriminating against someone because of their religious beliefs or practices.
It can lead to isolation and fear for those targeted, as their deeply personal values are attacked.
Sexual Bullying:
Sexual bullying includes making sexist remarks, unwanted sexual comments, or spreading rumours about someone’s sexual behaviour.
It can also involve inappropriate physical contact.
Sexual bullying often overlaps with sexual harassment and creates toxic environments, particularly in schools and workplaces.
Disability Bullying:
Disability bullying targets individuals with physical or intellectual disabilities.
This form of bullying dehumanizes the victim by mocking or excluding them based on their abilities, often leading to emotional harm and reinforcing negative stereotypes.
Workplace Bullying:
Workplace bullying is a form of persistent and unwanted behaviour that targets an individual and creates a hostile work environment.
It can take many forms:
Verbal abuse: Yelling, insulting, or making demeaning comments.
Undermining work: Deliberately sabotaging or obstructing someone’s work performance, such as withholding information, micromanaging, or setting impossible deadlines.
Social isolation: Excluding an individual from important meetings, ignoring their input, or ostracizing them from team activities.
Professional sabotage: Undermining someone’s credibility by spreading false rumours, criticizing their work unfairly, or taking credit for their achievements.
Intimidation: Using threats, bullying tactics, or abusive behaviour to manipulate or control colleagues.
Workplace bullying can have a serious impact on an individual's career, job satisfaction, and overall mental health.
Victims often experience stress, anxiety, depression, and, in extreme cases, feel compelled to leave their jobs.
Unlike traditional bullying, workplace bullying often involves a power imbalance due to hierarchical positions or authority, making it difficult for victims to confront the issue directly.
THE IMPACT OF BULLYING:
The consequences of bullying, whether in schools, online, or in the workplace, can be severe and long-lasting. Victims may experience a range of negative outcomes, including:
Mental Health Issues:
Depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are common among bullying victims.
Decreased Productivity:
In the workplace, bullying leads to reduced job performance, decreased job satisfaction, and higher absenteeism rates.
Physical Health Problems:
Stress from bullying can manifest in physical symptoms like headaches, stomach problems, and even long-term cardiovascular issues.
Social Withdrawal:
Victims of bullying may isolate themselves from friends, family, or colleagues out of fear, shame, or embarrassment.
National Bullying Prevention Month is an important reminder that bullying occurs
across all age groups and settings—from schools to the workplace.
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Regards,
Mike Bolhuis
Specialist Investigators into
Serious Violent, Serious Economic Crimes & Serious Cybercrimes
PSIRA Reg. 1590364/421949
Mobile: +27 82 447 6116
E-mail: mike@mikebolhuis.co.za
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