One in two 11-19 year olds bullied

In 2023, 68.5% of 11-19 year olds say they have been victims of at least one offensive, disrespectful or violent behaviour, online or offline. 21% say they have been victims of bullying, i.e. they have experienced such behaviour continuously (several times a month), while 8% several times a week. This is what emerges from Istat's survey on bullying and cyberbullying among young people for the year 2023.

The very young, between 11 and 13 years of age, are also more prone to offensive, disrespectful and/or violent behaviour than 14-19 year olds (23.7% vs. 19.8%). Males were bullied in 21.5% of cases, females in 20.5%. More foreign boys (26.8%) were bullied on a monthly basis than Italians (20.4%). This phenomenon is more pronounced among boys of Romanian and Ukrainian nationality, who are bullied at 29.2% and 27.8% respectively. Moreover, 71% of 11-19 year olds in the North-West of the country declare having been subjected to offensive, disrespectful and/or violent behaviour in the same period, compared to 66.5% among those living in the South. In the North, bullying episodes suffered with continuity are more frequent: 22.1% among young people in the North-East and 21.6% among those in the North-West against 20% in the South.

The survey also shows that more than 14% of 11-19 year olds have been offended and insulted several times a month and one in 10 young people have been victims of exclusion even more frequently. For boys, bullying manifests itself mainly through offence and insults (16% compared to 12.3% for girls), while the impact of exclusion for girls is more than 12% (compared to 8.5% for boys). Moreover, with regard to cyberbullying, 34% of young people in the same age group had been subjected to online bullying at least once in the 12 months preceding the survey, with 7.8% having fallen victim to it several times a month. 8.9% of males said they had been bullied online several times a month compared to 6.6% of females.

The president of Istat, Francesco Maria Chelli, explained on the sidelines of the presentation of the data in Rome that this is a survey already done 'in 2021 and 2015, so we can make a comparison between the previous ones and the current one. This phenomenon, which affects young people, is slightly increasing compared to 2021 and affects about one in five young people'. And it is 'a phenomenon to which great attention must be given and which must be studied continuously'.