As Italy marked a national day for the rights of children on Monday, it was gripped by panic over a string of bullying cases highlighting an apparently rising atmosphere of violence among Italian youth.
In recent days the public has learned that a gang of girls organised attacks on peers at a fairground in Perugia, that a boy suffering from Down's syndrome was cruelly victimised at school in Turin and that four boys have been arrested in Reggio Calabria for sexually abusing a 12-year-old.
Two surveys published on Monday show that about half of Italian teenagers say they have either been bullied or are often afraid of it happening.
Expressing his concern, Premier Romano Prodi said bullying reflected a "deterioration of the social fabric" and proposed the creation of a new institutional figure to deal with it.
He said a "childhood ombudsman" was needed to help young Italians develop a proper social conscience. This figure would be given legal powers to combat violence among minors and to keep an eye on the media.
Prodi fingered the media for sometimes portraying violence between adolescents as exciting.
But the premier, along with other government members, admitted that the law could only do so much.
"It's a reflection of how our society functions," said Social Solidarity Minister Paolo Ferraro. "In recent years the message young people are receiving is that we live in a sort of jungle, where the strongest always prevails".
Family Minister Rosy Bindi called this weekend for an action plan to be drawn up by the government with the help of research centres and volunteer groups that work with children and their families.
"It is getting harder and harder for families and schools to transmit values of respect, personal responsibility and commitment," she said.
"It is no good thinking you can resolve all this in courts of law or by blaming the parents. The responsibility for education belongs to everyone: families, schools media, culture, lay and religious institutions."
PARENTS BLAMED.
Others however were quick to put the blame on parents, allegedly inadequate when it came to training their offspring in proper behavior.
"The problem is not so much to do with the children as with the families. It comes from there," said Antonio Sclavi, head of UNICEF's Italian division.
There was widespread applause on Saturday when it emerged that a civil court judge has ruled that the parents of bullies can be held legally responsible for their offspring and made to pay.
The case involved five Milanese males, aged 15 and 16, who are being tried for raping a girl of 11. The judge decided that the homes of the parents of the five youths could be seized as compensation. The civil case is still proceeding.
Justice Minister Clemente Mastella has called for the government and opposition to cooperate on a plan to confront the problem. Ministry experts are reportedly ready to study possible changes to the law where it affects minors and families.
But elsewhere in the government there is a strong feeling that legal changes are pointless where bullying is concerned.
"The stupidest thing is to treat this as a question of rules and rule breaking, and to propose tougher penalties," said Minister Ferrero.
"The question is whether society is capable of instilling certain values, such as reciprocal respect and relations not based on violence".
A survey carried out on Italian school children aged 11-14 by Italian Society of Pediatricians found that eight out of ten children had direct or indirect experience of bullying.
The phenomenon, which appeared to be up 5% over last year, was slightly more frequent in boys than girls. Although three quarters of the sample said it was right to seek adult help when bullied, half admitted that they themselves wouldn't.
This was partly because of the stigma attached to kids who go to adults to resolve this sort of problem.
The debate over bullying has been accompanied by a rash of video clips on the Internet apparently showing teachers being humiliated by their students.
One clip seized on by the media showed a student lifting up his teacher's desk during a lesson and another producing blasts of flame from a cigarette lighter and a can of lighter fuel.
