Teen's death in Seville leads to more bullying reports from parents

Twenty-one years ago, on 21 September, Jokin Cebeiro Laboa rode his bicycle to the Fuenterrabía town wall and threw himself off the top, four days short of his 15th birthday. He took his own life while his parents, the headmaster of his school and the parents of the children who were bullying him were in a meeting to discuss and find a solution to a problem that had been making his life miserable for a year.

That case in the Basque Country led to the first media coverage of school bullying in Spain. The recent death by suicide of Sandra Peña in Seville has shown that the methods used in dealing with bullying by schools, teachers and parents is still not working.

"Jokin's case was a great shock for Spanish society. But the reality is that, two decades later, there has been no improvement. The system is failing, we need a structural change, but the Sandra Peña case could be a turning point, the end of silence," Enrique Pérez-Carrillo from the Spanish association for the prevention of bullying (Aepae) said.

Aepae's phones and emails have not stopped receiving messages since the girl from the Loreto school in Seville took her own life by throwing herself off the roof of her house.

"The messages have multiplied by 50 and we can't cope. We are receiving cases of minor, serious and very serious bullying that are happening in schools," Pérez-Carrillo stated. These are messages from parents who suspect that their child may be suffering bullying at school and want to know how to act before it is too late. The tragedy in Andalucía has created a wave of anxiety among parents. On the other hand, it has encouraged them to speak up and seek solutions.

Several cases have come to light in just one week. On Friday, five sixth-form pupils were sanctioned for harassing a five-year-old girl in Vigo. A day earlier, the Catalan police announced that they are opening the investigation into the death of 15-year-old Dani Quintana this past July. His family reported that he had been the victim of bullying at his school - the Institut Canigó.

The hashtag #StopBullying has gained relevance on social media, encompassing the stories of numerous teenagers who have taken their own lives due to bullying. Sandra and Dani are not the only victims. In 2023, Claudia from Gijón wrote a note explaining that bullying had led her to no longer want to live. Daniela from Oviedo took her own life in October 2024. 12-year-old Lucía, who had been diagnosed with autism, died for the same reasons this past February in Tenerife.

The public voice of all parents who have lost their children to bullying is José Manuel López Viñuela, who lost his 15-year-old daughter Kira to bullying in 2021. The association he is part of - Trencats - has been calling for a state law against bullying and denounces the lack of support provided by schools. While there are many parents who continue fighting after losing their child, there are other families, usually with more children, that choose to focus on what they still have.

"We only work in the region of Madrid and I can assure you that, since the Sandra Peña case, consultations have skyrocketed," president of the Madrid association against bullying (Amacae) María José Fernández said. She has attended five families in person over the last few days and has several meetings scheduled for next week. "They are all parents who suspect that their child is being bullied," she said, adding that parents who suspect their child might be the bully rarely call.

"In the 12 years that the association has been active, only two families of bullies have contacted us," Fernández said. She has also been receiving multiple invitations to give talks in schools.

According to official information from the region of Madrid, there were 3,279 bullying protocols open in primary and secondary schools in February. They only concerned this region of Spain. "The problem is that, at a national level, there are no objective figures, beyond studies of incidence," Aepae states. In a September survey carried out by the Anar foundation, 12.3% of students (out of a sample of 8,781 minors) stated that they or one of their classmates was being bullied at school (in person, cyberbullying or both). This figure is up from 9.4% the previous year.

There is also a 2023 study carried out by the ColaCao foundation and the Complutense University which states that almost two students per class suffer bullying in Spain. This is one of the most comprehensive studies that have been carried out in the country, with a sample of nearly 21,000 students. It concludes that from the fourth year of primary school to the fourth year of secondary school, there are 6.2% of students who recognise themselves as victims of bullying. There are, therefore, thousands of children and families who have come forward in a wave that mimics a 'Me Too' domino effect.