Crossroads Asia | Society | Central Asia

Mongolia’s Schools Have a Violence Problem That Goes Far Deeper Than Viral Videos

When victimized students were asked where they turned for help, 44.5 percent said they searched the internet, while only 2.9 percent went to a friend and fewer than 3 percent contacted the police.

Recent videos circulating on Mongolian social media have shaken many citizens. The footage depicts groups of teenagers threatening, slapping, whipping, photographing, and even stripping fellow students. Officials have responded by promising that bullying incidents will be logged on student records. But punitive record-keeping addresses neither the scale nor the roots of what is happening inside Mongolia’s schools, where peer violence, sexual abuse, cyberbullying, and a mental health emergency have been compounding quietly for years.

A survey conducted by Mongolia’s Ministry of Education across eight provinces and Ulaanbaatar found that 82.8 percent of children aged 12-18 reported having experienced some form of peer violence or bullying. That means roughly eight in every 10 Mongolian schoolchildren have been victimized in some way. The most common perpetrators were older students, responsible for 47.6 percent of school-based incidents, followed by teachers at 15 percent. The fact that adults are implicated in nearly one in six cases points to a systemic failure in school culture, not simply a problem among teenagers.

A more recent survey of 1,093 students across 22 schools in Ulaanbaatar’s eight districts found that one in three students in two districts (Bagakhangai and Khan-Uul) reported experiencing peer bullying. Cyberbullying accounted for 22.1 percent of cases, with Khan-Uul district recording a rate of 35.5 percent. When victimized students were asked where they turned for help, 44.5 percent said they searched the internet, while only 2.9 percent went to a friend and fewer than 3 percent contacted the police. The survey suggests that Mongolian children are navigating serious trauma largely alone, uncertain who to trust or what recourse exists.

It’s not a coincidence, then, that Mongolia has among the highest rates of adolescent suicide in East Asia and the Pacific. A 2016 figure placed Mongolia third in the world for suicide rates, at 23.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. Among school-age adolescents, the trajectory has been deeply alarming: a 2019 national school health survey found that 32.1 percent of students aged 13 to 18 reported having attempted suicide. A more recent survey found that 49 percent of adolescent girls aged 13 to 17 reported suicidal ideation, and 21 percent had attempted suicide.

Researchers have found a direct statistical link between bullying victimization and suicidal behavior among Mongolian male adolescents. Being physically attacked or bullied at school was among the strongest predictors of a suicide attempt for boys. For girls, anxiety and exposure to violence played the dominant role. 

Despite this, Mongolia’s support infrastructure remains strained. A parliamentary session in March 2026 heard testimony that 55.3 percent of identified bullying victims were only discovered after they had already sought treatment at the National Trauma and Orthopedics Center, meaning the violence had escalated to the point of requiring medical care before it was formally flagged. The system, in effect, is catching children far too late.

Bullying in Mongolian schools is not always confined to physical or psychological intimidation. Sexual violence is woven into this landscape in ways that are rarely openly discussed. A 2017 UNFPA national survey found that one in 10 women in Mongolia reported experiencing sexual abuse before the age of 15, and Mongolia records some of the highest rates of non-partner sexual violence in Asia. A UNICEF analysis has noted that adolescent girls are at elevated risk of sexual abuse and violence, both within the home and in other settings.

The consequences appear in reproductive health statistics. Each year, approximately 4,000 girls become pregnant in Mongolia, and while the adolescent birth rate has declined in recent years, it was until recently among the highest in the western Pacific region. A study using national survey data found that among adolescent girls who reported having had sex, 39.1 percent experienced a pregnancy. Critically, limited sex education, cultural silence around sexuality, and lack of access to reproductive healthcare all create conditions in which coercive sexual activity goes unrecognized or unreported.

Mongolia only banned so-called “virginity testing” in schools in 2021, following student protests, yet reports indicated the practice continued afterward. The normalization of intrusive, gendered practices in educational institutions reflects broader attitudes that make it difficult for young people, girls especially, to seek help when something goes wrong.

The viral videos that recently provoked public outrage are themselves a form of cyberbullying: humiliation is filmed and shared for an audience. This reflects a well-documented regional trend. Across East Asia, from South Korea to Japan, researchers and educators have pointed to social media as an accelerant of peer violence, giving perpetrators a platform that extends far beyond the school gate and that generates its own social rewards through likes, shares, and notoriety.

In Mongolia, 22 percent of surveyed students reported experiencing cyberbullying. A parliamentary member called for TikTok to be banned entirely in response to the viral footage, though officials acknowledged that no legal framework currently exists to restrict the platform. 

Four years ago, Mongolia’s Ministry of Education held a forum on school bullying with students, parents, and teachers, but no unified school bullying policy emerged from the discussions, and that gap remains. As confirmed in recent parliamentary hearings, bullying is still not classified as a criminal act in its own right.

Schools vary widely in whether they have functioning child protection teams, social workers, or counselors. Progress has been made on staffing: the number of school psychologists rose from 421 to 799 between academic years, and social workers increased slightly. Yet the gap between professional support and the scale of need remains significant. A parliamentary session heard that in the 2024-25 school year, of nearly 750,000 students assessed for risk, over 16,000 were identified as having experienced peer bullying, and more than 58,000 were categorized as medium or high risk.

Structural barriers also complicate the picture. Parents frequently side with their own children when incidents are raised with schools, and some actively intimidate other parents or staff during mediation sessions. Cultural norms around masculinity discourage boys from reporting victimization. Reporting bullying is still widely seen as a form of weakness or betrayal, particularly among students themselves.

Rural communities face an additional layer of disadvantage. Mental health services remain heavily concentrated in Ulaanbaatar. Suicide rates in rural areas are significantly higher, and access to the kinds of school-based counseling and intervention programs that exist in the capital is far more limited in rural areas.

Against all of this, the government’s flagship response has been to log bullying on student records. The most urgent need is not a paper trail but trusted adults, a safe reporting channel, and a school environment that treats violence as an institutional failure rather than a personal weakness.

The viral videos are shocking, but they are symptoms. The deeper problem has been documented in surveys, parliamentary hearings, medical records, and adolescent health data for years. Mongolia’s response still doesn’t match the reality.

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Recent videos circulating on Mongolian social media have shaken many citizens. The footage depicts groups of teenagers threatening, slapping, whipping, photographing, and even stripping fellow students. Officials have responded by promising that bullying incidents will be logged on student records. But punitive record-keeping addresses neither the scale nor the roots of what is happening inside Mongolia’s schools, where peer violence, sexual abuse, cyberbullying, and a mental health emergency have been compounding quietly for years.

A survey conducted by Mongolia’s Ministry of Education across eight provinces and Ulaanbaatar found that 82.8 percent of children aged 12-18 reported having experienced some form of peer violence or bullying. That means roughly eight in every 10 Mongolian schoolchildren have been victimized in some way. The most common perpetrators were older students, responsible for 47.6 percent of school-based incidents, followed by teachers at 15 percent. The fact that adults are implicated in nearly one in six cases points to a systemic failure in school culture, not simply a problem among teenagers.

A more recent survey of 1,093 students across 22 schools in Ulaanbaatar’s eight districts found that one in three students in two districts (Bagakhangai and Khan-Uul) reported experiencing peer bullying. Cyberbullying accounted for 22.1 percent of cases, with Khan-Uul district recording a rate of 35.5 percent. When victimized students were asked where they turned for help, 44.5 percent said they searched the internet, while only 2.9 percent went to a friend and fewer than 3 percent contacted the police. The survey suggests that Mongolian children are navigating serious trauma largely alone, uncertain who to trust or what recourse exists.

It’s not a coincidence, then, that Mongolia has among the highest rates of adolescent suicide in East Asia and the Pacific. A 2016 figure placed Mongolia third in the world for suicide rates, at 23.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. Among school-age adolescents, the trajectory has been deeply alarming: a 2019 national school health survey found that 32.1 percent of students aged 13 to 18 reported having attempted suicide. A more recent survey found that 49 percent of adolescent girls aged 13 to 17 reported suicidal ideation, and 21 percent had attempted suicide.

Researchers have found a direct statistical link between bullying victimization and suicidal behavior among Mongolian male adolescents. Being physically attacked or bullied at school was among the strongest predictors of a suicide attempt for boys. For girls, anxiety and exposure to violence played the dominant role. 

Despite this, Mongolia’s support infrastructure remains strained. A parliamentary session in March 2026 heard testimony that 55.3 percent of identified bullying victims were only discovered after they had already sought treatment at the National Trauma and Orthopedics Center, meaning the violence had escalated to the point of requiring medical care before it was formally flagged. The system, in effect, is catching children far too late.

Bullying in Mongolian schools is not always confined to physical or psychological intimidation. Sexual violence is woven into this landscape in ways that are rarely openly discussed. A 2017 UNFPA national survey found that one in 10 women in Mongolia reported experiencing sexual abuse before the age of 15, and Mongolia records some of the highest rates of non-partner sexual violence in Asia. A UNICEF analysis has noted that adolescent girls are at elevated risk of sexual abuse and violence, both within the home and in other settings.

The consequences appear in reproductive health statistics. Each year, approximately 4,000 girls become pregnant in Mongolia, and while the adolescent birth rate has declined in recent years, it was until recently among the highest in the western Pacific region. A study using national survey data found that among adolescent girls who reported having had sex, 39.1 percent experienced a pregnancy. Critically, limited sex education, cultural silence around sexuality, and lack of access to reproductive healthcare all create conditions in which coercive sexual activity goes unrecognized or unreported.

Mongolia only banned so-called “virginity testing” in schools in 2021, following student protests, yet reports indicated the practice continued afterward. The normalization of intrusive, gendered practices in educational institutions reflects broader attitudes that make it difficult for young people, girls especially, to seek help when something goes wrong.

The viral videos that recently provoked public outrage are themselves a form of cyberbullying: humiliation is filmed and shared for an audience. This reflects a well-documented regional trend. Across East Asia, from South Korea to Japan, researchers and educators have pointed to social media as an accelerant of peer violence, giving perpetrators a platform that extends far beyond the school gate and that generates its own social rewards through likes, shares, and notoriety.

In Mongolia, 22 percent of surveyed students reported experiencing cyberbullying. A parliamentary member called for TikTok to be banned entirely in response to the viral footage, though officials acknowledged that no legal framework currently exists to restrict the platform. 

Four years ago, Mongolia’s Ministry of Education held a forum on school bullying with students, parents, and teachers, but no unified school bullying policy emerged from the discussions, and that gap remains. As confirmed in recent parliamentary hearings, bullying is still not classified as a criminal act in its own right.

Schools vary widely in whether they have functioning child protection teams, social workers, or counselors. Progress has been made on staffing: the number of school psychologists rose from 421 to 799 between academic years, and social workers increased slightly. Yet the gap between professional support and the scale of need remains significant. A parliamentary session heard that in the 2024-25 school year, of nearly 750,000 students assessed for risk, over 16,000 were identified as having experienced peer bullying, and more than 58,000 were categorized as medium or high risk.

Structural barriers also complicate the picture. Parents frequently side with their own children when incidents are raised with schools, and some actively intimidate other parents or staff during mediation sessions. Cultural norms around masculinity discourage boys from reporting victimization. Reporting bullying is still widely seen as a form of weakness or betrayal, particularly among students themselves.

Rural communities face an additional layer of disadvantage. Mental health services remain heavily concentrated in Ulaanbaatar. Suicide rates in rural areas are significantly higher, and access to the kinds of school-based counseling and intervention programs that exist in the capital is far more limited in rural areas.

Against all of this, the government’s flagship response has been to log bullying on student records. The most urgent need is not a paper trail but trusted adults, a safe reporting channel, and a school environment that treats violence as an institutional failure rather than a personal weakness.

The viral videos are shocking, but they are symptoms. The deeper problem has been documented in surveys, parliamentary hearings, medical records, and adolescent health data for years. Mongolia’s response still doesn’t match the reality.

Enkhmend Ariunsukh is a Mongolian student researcher at Corvinus University of Budapest and an advocate for child protection, women's health, and access to education in Mongolia.

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