SINGAPORE — The torment began when she started Primary 1, and ended only when she left the school two years later.

New to a popular all-girls’ school, a seven-year-old quickly became a target of bullying by more than one group of her peers. A few pupils spread rumours that she had cheated in her exams, while another threw rubbish into her school bag, crushed her homework, licked her snacks and hid her stationery.

A teacher took away an award she had earned for doing well in an assignment because of remarks that other girls had made, and she had to put a padlock on her bag to protect her belongings.

"I noticed something was wrong when my daughter was crying more often," said her mother, Rachel Tan (not her real name), a housewife in her early 50s.

Tan and her daughter both struggled to raise these encounters to teachers or the school, as there was no hard evidence. And when Tan tried to talk to a teacher about the rumours other girls had spread, nothing came of it.

At one point, Tan had to help her daughter practise how to defend herself in school. "I imagined helping her practise for oral exams, but not to stand up to her bullies."

Her daughter escaped her bullies after moving to a new school in 2024, where she is doing better and has made new friends, Tan said. But she worries that the experience has left her child emotionally scarred, and that she may not easily trust people or form friendships.

While the number of bullying incidents reported to the Ministry of Education (MOE) has been stable in the past decade, observers say teenage bullying is a growing concern, especially with new tools of social media and texting that have opened up ways for bullies to hurt people.

Technology has also drawn attention to cases of physical bullying that emerge online. Most recently in 2024, videos of at least three cases were widely circulated online and in chat groups.

One video uploaded in September shows a boy punching a smaller Qihua Primary School boy.

Another video, which surfaced in September, shows a group of Bukit View Secondary School boys taunting a fellow student at the void deck of a Housing Board flat. During the incident, which happened in 2023, one of the boys grabbed the student’s backpack before kicking him and sending him flying.

In August, videos posted on Facebook show people being slapped, punched and kicked at ITE College Central.

In October, Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao reported that a Secondary 1 student from Meridian Secondary School suffered a rupture in her right eardrum after her schoolmates allegedly slapped and hit her for 20 minutes. 

About two in every 1,000 primary school pupils report bullying incidents each year, and the figure for secondary school students is five in every 1,000, said MOE, without disclosing exact figures. 

But observers told The Straits Times that these statistics may not fully reflect the extent of the problem, because children fear the possibility of retaliation from bullies and may not fully understand what they are going through.

Physical bullying incidents are the tip of the iceberg, they said. Other forms of aggression like psychological or verbal bullying — offline and online — often go undetected, as these are less obvious, and children feel they may not warrant the same level of attention.

"Children can worry about appearing petty to their teachers and classmates," said Sandy Ho, a counsellor from MindfulBear, a private centre that specialises in counselling for children and teenagers. This often results in them choosing to keep quiet and ignoring the issue, she added.

Hidden violence, but harmful

Another parent, who wanted to be known only as M, said her 10-year-old child tolerated her schoolmates’ taunting for almost a year.

She said they said words like "oh sh*t" when her daughter walked past them, whispered and pointed at her, and bad-mouthed her to others in front of her. One girl also kicked her daughter in the shin.

M, who is in her 40s, said she did not report the psychological bullying as her daughter had pleaded with her not to, citing reasons like fear of retaliation.

The bullies continued ganging up on her daughter and gave her phone number to strangers, getting them to send vulgar and harassing messages to her.

It was only when M said she would make a police report that teachers took action. In the meantime, her child was told to be gracious and take different routes in school to avoid the other girls.

The bullies were told to write apology letters, which her daughter accepted.

"Psychological bullying is very easily deniable and there are no bruises as proof," said M. "But it should be taken as seriously as physical bullying."

Jane Lim, lead school counsellor from MOE’s guidance branch, student development curriculum division 1, said that students are taught the channels for reporting bullying incidents.

But some may feel unsafe reporting these incidents as they worry about retaliation, she added.  

"Older students may choose not to report incidents to teachers, and instead seek help from their peers or attempt to resolve the situations on their own," Lim said.

"We frequently remind our students that it is okay to notify teachers and seek help if they are being bullied, or have noticed their friends being bullied."

She added that teachers are trained to identify signs of distress and can support students, some of whom may be referred to a school counsellor.

In Secondary 1 and 2, Laurene Chung endured verbal bullying in school that followed her home, in the form of hateful anonymous comments on Ask.fm, a question and answer network, and on social media platform X, previously known as Twitter.

Chung, now 25, said: "I had no escape. They told me I was ugly, and started nitpicking parts of my face, like my eyebrows."

A group of five or six female students would pick on her and corner her after morning assembly, not allowing her to go to class. This happened a few times a week.

"I feared going to school," she said. "Until now, I’m not sure what motivated them to pick on me."

In her darkest moments, her confidant was her younger brother, who held her hand as she cried in bed at night.

Chung said she did not want her parents to know she was being bullied so as not to worry them. She also did not tell her teachers, for fear that the bullying would worsen or that word would get back to her parents.

"Most of my recovery was me reminding myself that it will get better," she said, and the bullying stopped in Secondary 3 after some girls transferred out of the school.

What drives bullies?

The causes of bullying are complex but connected, said Ho, the counsellor.

Social factors like peer pressure may push people to bully others to gain acceptance or show dominance, while cultural influences — such as aggression depicted in the media — result in children being less aware of the harm they cause, she said.

Some who have self-esteem or emotional issues use bullying to feel "in control", Ho added. Others may have grown up in a violent household, and are more likely to mimic such behaviours. 

Children in a school environment with "poor supervision and weak anti-bullying measures" may also not understand how their actions hurt others, she said.

"Addressing these causes needs a joint effort from families, schools and communities to create a supportive environment that discourages bullying and promotes empathy," she added.

Associate Professor of Psychology (Education) Andree Hartanto from the School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University said research has shown that cyber-bullying victims are likely to become cyber-bullying perpetrators in the future.

"Unlike traditional bullying, which often involves physical disparities — where stronger children or adolescents target physically weaker ones — cyber bullying occurs in the digital realm. This lack of physical confrontation allows victims to become bullies more easily themselves, as they are no longer hindered by physical disadvantage."

Bullying can leave lasting emotional scars, he said.

"These emotional traumas can escalate into ongoing issues with self-worth and more serious mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Tackling the root causes of bullying requires a multi-faceted approach that addresses both the individual needs of the bully and the broader social context in which bullying occurs," he added.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.