‘Bullied to death’: Victorian schoolboy, 15, takes own life on Australia Day
Four days before the school year began, on Australia Day, a 15-year-old son killed himself, leaving a Victorian family in mourning.
According to a GoFundMe set up by a family friend, Irene Wells, Jesse Wareham, a student at St. Augustine’s College in the central-north town of Kyabram, close to Shepparton, was “bullied to death.”
“We loved and respected Jasmine/masseur of Kyabram for many years and have lost her beautiful son Jessie 15 years old of Tongala,” the fundraiser stated, “and I am sad and heartbroken to inform our community, Jas’s clients, and Jesse’s school friends of this.”
“Under tragic circumstances, Jesse attended St. Augustine’s school in Kyabram. On Australia Day, four days prior to his scheduled return to school on Thursday, Jesse committed suicide.
Parents who were “unable to protect them from the deep dark thoughts of suicide and for their precious child to actually take their own life” were sympathized with, according to Ms. Wells.
Jesse “had so much life … and so much to offer,” according to Ms. Wells, who also called him “beautiful, loving, caring (and) handsome.”
“They took another lovely young life with their own hands.” Bullying is punishable by death. We must all treat everyone with kindness.
For more information, News.com.au has reached out to St. Augustine’s College and the family.
Teenage Australian students experience the second-highest rate of bullying among 24 nations in the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), according to a report released last May by the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER).
Among the six metrics used to measure bullying, nearly one in six of the 13,430 15-year-old students polled said they had experienced bullying from other students.
Six percent reported being physically abused by others, and one in ten said they were the subject of nasty rumors.
According to senior research fellow Lisa de Bortoli, the ACER study examined the results of the 2022 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which revealed that “all (Australian) jurisdictions reported higher levels of bullying than compared to the OECD average.”
Latvia, in northeastern Europe, was the only participating OECD nation where students were more exposed to bullying.
Tasmania reported the highest rate of bullying and the lowest level of school safety among all Australian states and territories.
Following the tragic death of 12-year-old Sydney schoolgirl Charlotte O’Brien in September, federal Education Minister Jason Clare called on state and territory leaders to assist in creating a national standard for handling bullying in November.
When announcing the initiative, Employment Minister Murry Watt told reporters, “We’re funding … an expert-led review into what we can do to strengthen procedures within schools and try to stamp out bullying.”
“The basic truth is that bullying does not occur anywhere, at any time, or in any form, and our government is responding to it in the same way that we are responding to cyberbullying.”
The review will evaluate the anti-bullying policies in place in each jurisdiction and make suggestions for developing a unified, national standard.
“We respect the fact that there will be some differences across state borders because each state and territory does slightly different things,” Mr. Watt stated.
“However, I believe that the Australian public has made it very clear that they want more government cooperation and action to stop bullying in schools and online.”
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