The seventh annual Cayman Islands Commonwealth Youth Parliamentary meeting Monday took up the controversial topic of cyberbullying during its morning meeting and, somewhat surprisingly, voted down a proposal that sought to criminalize the issue.
The vote went along “party lines,” with eight members of the opposition youth parliament supporting it, while 11 members of the government were opposed.
The youth parliament debates are organized each year by the Cayman Islands branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and give high school students the chance to “sit in” as members of the Legislative Assembly for a day. A nomination process for Speaker of the youth parliament, as well as party leaders and ministers, is undertaken prior to the debates occurring. Students selected to participate often spend weeks or even months working on the arguments they put forward as parliament members.
Opposition youth parliament leader Leshontae Missick, representing Bodden Town, filed the cyberbullying motion, which was seconded by Kaitlan DaCosta, representing West Bay district.
“Cyberbullying can take many forms, from stealing a person’s account information to breaking into their account and leaving damaging messages, pretending to be someone else to hurt another person, taking unflattering pictures of a person and [sending them] through use of cell phones and sending sexually suggestive pictures or messages about a person,” Ms. Missick said.
She acknowledged that cyber-bullying has varying levels of seriousness and not all such crimes should be punished in the same way.
The youth parliament minister for financial services and the environment, Janelle Syms [*], representing West Bay, said criminalizing cyberbullying would be a questionable use of public resources.
“Every individual signs up to a public social networking site at their own risk,” Ms. Syms said. “It’s completely voluntary and they ought to know the types of activities that go on within such mediums, but they still choose to expose themselves for the sake of being cool or connected.”
The youth parliament minister favored education through the community and, most importantly, through families, regarding the use of Internet social media to fight off what she admitted is a serious problem, a problem law enforcement might not be equipped to deal with.
“We would have to install tracking devices on every electronic device used within the Cayman Islands in order to monitor Internet activity,” she said. “This would be a very difficult task.”
Ms. DaCosta, also representing the opposition benches, said the government’s position on the matter didn’t take into account the emotional and psychological impact of cyberbullying.
“Have you ever considered if cyberbullying was linked any of the suicide deaths, especially teenagers within the last decade?” she asked.
“The scars of physical abuse will heal and fade while the emotional scars are still so raw and will always be there as a constant reminder,” Ms. DaCosta said. “Unlike traditional bullying, where bullying … will stay at school when school finishes at 3 p.m., cyberbullying is there 24-7 … where people can see on the world wide web surfing population.”
Standing in as the premier of the youth parliament, Adrian Stewart, representing George Town district, noted that the criminalization motion might actually be a bit of overkill.
“We have laws in place … to protect the public from this arising danger,” Mr. Stewart said. “These laws that I speak of are the Information and Communication Technology Authority Law [2011 Revision] and a pending amendment to the Penal Code … to introduce the offense of stalking.”
Section 90[1] of the ICTA Law states that a person who knowingly uses an ICT network or ICT service to defraud, abuse, annoy, threaten or harass another person… faces a fine of up to $10,000 or imprisonment for one year.
A number of other youth parliament speakers gave their views on the subject, all conforming with party lines.
A second motion was heard before the youth parliament on amending the Traffic Law to change the legal driving age in the Cayman Islands. Debate on that motion continued after press time Monday.
[*] Editor’s note: The story was changed to reflect that Janelle Syms, the youth parliament’s first elected member from West Bay, made the referenced statements during Monday’s debate.
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