Jordan stands together in the face of cyber bullying Great success for ‘the new epidemic at the time of the pandemic’ campaign
01-27-2021
Amman, Jordan 27 January 2021, More than 1 million children shared and engaged with the national campaign “the new epidemic at the time of the pandemic” that was carried out by the National Council for Family Affairs and UNICEF Jordan to curb the effects of cyberbullying on children. The campaign witnessed widespread interaction across media and educational and popular social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. This campaign is latest in a series of activations to end violence against children in Jordan, jointly launched by the NCFA and UNICEF Jordan in 2017 as part of the National Plan for ending violence against children.
The need to launch this specialized campaign on cyber bullying came about with the aim of creating public awareness about the issue of cyberbullying and internet safety, spreading knowledge on safe internet usage as well as digital protection policies and encouraging appropriate action by caregivers and children due to the significant increase in internet use during the Coronavirus pandemic, where the results of a UNICEF study showed that 64% of children in Jordan had been subjected to cyber bullying during the pandemic. This makes this issue an important topic of public debate that should be discussed especially within the digital communities and social media users in Jordan.
The campaign engaged with 60 online activists and influencers on social media sites who in turn became partners of the campaign and assisted in spreading knowledge and awareness through their pages and accounts, who were ready to adopt the campaign message and believed in their active role in delivering the information shared by NCFA and UNICEF to spread awareness and information to caregivers and positively impact children. The campaign succeeded in attracting children, where the percentage of young followers for the campaign was 57%, mostly from the capital, Amman.
The campaign against cyber bullying is one of the most important campaigns that addressed young people during the pandemic, where it was characterized by its creative posts that suited its target
Audience, in addition to addressing parents, caregivers and those that work in the education sector to stimulate positive interaction with young people based on the direct relationship between them and this phenomenon. This worked very well in creating a public and interactive virtual space that stimulated discussions among the pioneers of social networking sites across all applications, where young people were reached through their favorite platforms. Specifically, children were targeted on Tiktok, which according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the number of users increased by an additional 25% during the pandemic.
The campaign against cyber bullying has helped to highlight this phenomenon and the importance of preventing it by raising awareness at the national, institutional, academic and grass-roots level in order to demand the necessary interventions and policies to confront it, provide legal support and develop plans to provide psychosocial support to deal with victims of cyber bullying.
It is worth mentioning that the campaign, which began at the end of last year, lasted for 60 days and was implemented on social media platforms of the National Council for Family Affairs and UNICEF Jordan, and used the Arabic hashtags ‘the cyber bullying epidemic’ and ‘no to cyber bullying’.
-END-
For more information:
Khadijah Alaween [email protected]
Director of Communication and Mentoring, NCFA
Mobile: 0795691658
Dima Salameh [email protected]
Media Officer, UNICEF Jordan
Mobile: +962799841703
