10% of high school students harassed

Almost four out of ten high school students think school violence is a serious problem and one of ten has experienced acts of violence by their fellow students. A survey carried out by the National Police Agency among 8,353 middle and high school students Mar. 2-15 showed 65.6 percent of them believe violence in their schools was not serious, with 11.6 percent having personally suffered violence in the past year. More middle school children (16.7 percent) experienced violence than high school students (9 percent), and there were more victims of violence among male students (18.0 percent) than females (6.9 percent).

Given as causes of the upsurge in school violence were ``decadent culture`` (54.1 percent) and broken homes (20.5 percent), followed by inadequate guidance by teachers (16.7 percent) and others (8.7 percent). Many of the victimized children hoped to talk over such violent harassment with their friends, senior students (50 percent), parents (26.5 percent), teachers (11.3 percent) or police officers (8.2 percent), but were deterred from doing so by fears of reprisals.

Violent encounters were apt to take place on the way to or from school(27.4 percent), at off-campus institutes and surrounding areas (26.4 percent), in ``game rooms`` (22.9 percent), near community study rooms (19.7 percent) and in other places (3.6 percent). Police said they would take steps to stamp out violence among schoolchildren.

[Yonhap]