Kira López's parents ask that the reiteration is not necessary to consider bullying

Kira López's parents have asked the Minister of Education of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Anna Simó, to activate a new protocol against bullying next year where the reiteration requirement to consider a case of bullying disappears.

“Standardizing in the protocols the requirement of reiteration over time”, as can be seen from the current definition of bullying, “is normalizing abuse in educational centers”, Kira's parents, the 15-year-old girl who they say committed suicide in May 2021, before going to the Pare Manyanet school in Barcelona due to the bullying she suffered.

For parents, the reiteration requirement is “a flagrant violation of the rights of minors that must be urgently eradicated.”

For this reason, they have asked Anna Simó that the Catalan protocols against bullying “be the first that do not violate the rights of minors, do not allow repeated violence and guarantee the protection of victims.”

Parents have also required that the protocols against bullying consider “violence” and not “coexistence conflict” the “mistreatment between equals with abuse of power on the one hand and defenselessness on the other”, as “happens in the current protocols”.

In addition, they have indicated that the protocols “should not serve to justify the inaction of the center due to the fact that the episodes of violence are not considered repeated and prolonged over time.”

In this sense, he added that “it must be included among the obligations and responsibility” of teachers and management teams “to act and activate the protocol when a situation of violence is brought to their attention, whether by the victim, the family, of third parties or of the teacher himself as an observer”.

They have also requested that the record of the entire process be made in writing and shared with the family and administrations. “That a school activates protocols in any situation of violence should be synonymous with a safe school and not a conflictive school,” Kira's father appreciated.

For this reason, he has proposed to the minister the establishment of a system that rewards schools that “apply the protocols from the beginning, regardless of the result”, since the “sole objective and priority is to guarantee the safety of minors”..

Kira's parents propose a “sanctioning mechanism for schools that do not apply the protocols against bullying” because “they have put other interests ahead.”

Regarding the performance of the educational inspection, they have transferred to the minister that “in no way can it be limited to listening only to the school version, as is currently done by default”.

Regarding the suicide of their daughter, the parents have asked the minister to inform them about the investigations carried out by the Educational Inspectorate at the Pare Manyanet school to find out if those responsible applied the protocol against child bullying that they say the girl suffered .

Last February, the Court of Barcelona closed the case of Kira López, seeing no indication that she suffered bullying at the time of the suicide..