A Father’s Fight After His Daughter’s Death: Demanding Laws Against Cyberbullying

When 14-year-old Mia Janin died in 2021 after enduring relentless bullying online and at school, her father began a campaign to confront what he calls systemic indifference to digital abuse. He has urged lawmakers to criminalize cyberbullying, demanded schools take stronger responsibility for student safety, and pushed for stricter regulation of social media platforms. Mia’s case, which drew national attention in the U.K., joins a growing list of tragedies worldwide—from Amanda Todd in Canada to Mila in France—that reveal how institutions lag far behind the realities of digital harassment. For her father, Mariano Janin, the fight is both personal and global: “One death is a death too much. This culture of wilful ignorance needs to change, and it needs to change now.”

A Father’s Fight After His Daughter’s Death: Demanding a Law Against Cyberbullying

The devastating case of 14-year-old Mia Janin in London underscores the lethal consequences of unchecked online abuse. In March 2021, just one day after returning to school following the lifting of Covid lockdowns, Mia was found dead at her family’s home. What her parents only discovered afterward was the extent of the harassment she had endured, both online and in person, at the hands of male classmates. Social media had become the weapon of choice, with students using it to ridicule, isolate, and threaten her until she reached a breaking point. In a voice note sent to a friend the night before her death, Mia spoke with chilling clarity: “Tomorrow’s going to be a rough day, I’m taking deep breaths in and out. I’m currently mentally preparing myself to get bullied tomorrow.”

Her father, Mariano Janin, has since called for cyberbullying to be made a specific crime, urging lawmakers to recognize the global crisis facing young people online. “We need to be more alert,” he said. “I would like the system to work.” For him, Mia’s death was not just a personal tragedy but evidence of systemic failure, leaving schools unprepared to respond, social media platforms slow to act, and laws lagging far behind the reality of digital harm.

Mia’s story echoes other tragedies worldwide. In Canada, Amanda Todd’s suicide in 2012 followed years of relentless online harassment after intimate images were circulated without her consent. In France, the case of teenager Mila, who faced tens of thousands of death threats after posting comments online, highlighted how quickly digital mobs can escalate into real-world danger. And in the United States, 13-year-old Megan Meier’s death in 2006, after being deceived and tormented by an adult posing as a peer on MySpace, became one of the first cases to draw international attention to the fatal risks of cyberbullying.

Each case is a reminder that the abuse inflicted online does not remain online. It seeps into homes, schools, and workplaces, leaving scars that are often invisible until it is too late. Mia Janin’s death adds to a growing body of evidence that digital cruelty, when unchecked, can be as destructive as any physical act of violence, and that without stronger protections, young people remain dangerously exposed.

In the United Kingdom, there is still no specific law addressing bullying or cyberbullying. Courts rely on existing statutes related to harassment and malicious communications, leaving families like the Janins desperate for more direct protections. Speaking publicly, Mia’s father, Mariano Janin, has been clear: “We need to do something against bullying. We need to revise the existing legislation about bullying, try to understand and try to act, do something.” His call is twofold—greater accountability for platforms and perpetrators, and a cultural shift in how society teaches young people values like kindness, acceptance, and empathy. “We need to transmit to our kids values, normal values, kindness, acceptance, understanding—then we need, of course, some kind of legal boundaries for social media,” he said.

Janin has also argued for bereaved parents to have more access to their children’s social media accounts, in order to piece together what led to their deaths. “I know there are still lots of young people suffering,” he told the BBC. “In a good country, in a modern society, we shouldn’t have our kids dying for this stupid matter or subject.” For him, Mia’s case is not an isolated tragedy but part of a global pattern. “I’m sitting here in London, probably at the same time we have another parent doing the same in Milano, another one in San Francisco, in Buenos Aires,” he reflected.

The passage of the UK’s Online Safety Bill in October 2023, which promises to improve protections for children online, has been described by Janin as “a first step in order to get real change.” But his grief is layered with further loss. Just months after Mia’s death, her mother, Marisa, died following an aneurysm and a leukemia diagnosis, leaving Mariano alone.

“I think I can accept what happened, I don’t think I will understand,” he said. “I accept it has happened to me—I just live in an empty house with a small dog. I used to have a home with a wife and a daughter. I accept that is my reality. I cannot escape from this.”

His testimony not only highlights the devastating ripple effects of cyberbullying but also raises serious concerns about institutional failures. Janin has been openly critical of how his daughter’s school responded to the harassment both during her life and after her death, questioning whether enough was done to protect her or to properly investigate what happened. His story is a stark reminder that the consequences of digital abuse extend far beyond the screen—destroying families, eroding trust in institutions, and leaving survivors with questions that legislation alone cannot answer.

In response to the growing scrutiny, a spokesperson for JFS stated: “After Mia’s tragic death, all information held by the school was handed to the Metropolitan Police to support their investigation. Throughout the investigation, the school has given open access to all of its systems. Our thoughts remain, as they have always been, with the family.”

But the case has continued to raise urgent questions about institutional responsibility. Earlier this week, the coroner for North London issued a formal report to JFS, pressing its leadership to take stronger measures against bullying, with particular concern over the targeting of female pupils by male students. While acknowledging that policies had been revised in the aftermath of Mia’s death, the coroner concluded that “new initiatives do not appear to have gained the confidence of some JFS female students.”

For Mariano Janin, the coroner’s warning validated what he had long argued. In a statement to the BBC, he welcomed the intervention but voiced frustration: “I remain concerned that the school has not, and is not, doing enough. The school, indeed all schools, need to take their responsibilities towards our children much more seriously. One death is a death too much. This culture of wilful ignorance needs to change and it needs to change now.”

The school defended its record, stressing that the witness statements referenced by the coroner, dated back to early 2021, were “not a reflection of the school today.” It pointed to an April 2022 Ofsted inspection, which found that pupils felt confident reporting bullying concerns to staff. Yet for Mia’s father, such assurances ring hollow. His daughter’s death and the culture that surrounded it illustrates the gap between written policies and lived reality, a gap that, unless closed, leaves other students just as vulnerable as Mia once was.

That vulnerability is not confined to schoolchildren. Across the globe, cases continue to show that institutions often fail to act until tragedy strikes. In California, a $1 million verdict was upheld in 2025 against the El Segundo Unified School District after 13-year-old Eleri Irons endured months of unchecked bullying, including death threats, that the district ignored. The court’s ruling sent a clear message: schools can and will be held accountable when they fail to protect students. 

Yet the problem does not stop at the schoolyard. Adults, too, are frequent targets of coordinated harassment, reputational sabotage, and online doxxing campaigns that can collapse entire businesses or drive individuals into isolation. The same structural gaps, institutions deflecting responsibility, platforms slow to intervene, and laws struggling to keep pace leave victims of every age exposed. Mia’s case, then, is not only about a single student in North London. It is part of a wider global crisis in which promises of safety remain unfulfilled, and the cost of inaction continues to be paid in lives.

Celine Lorenze is a former entrepreneur and self-described workaholic who built her life around business at the expense of balance. After years of running companies and living tethered to constant demands, she now writes cultural commentary and personal essays that examine the cost of overwork, the pressures of digital connectivity, and the struggle to reclaim time for family and self.