Hanging up the phone on October 8, Eranda Kumnova-Batsi, a school inspector in Kosovo, discovered that dozens of teenage girls in her town were self-harming to participate in a TikTok “challenge”.

“A mother called me to tell me that her daughter, a fifth-grader, had injured herself along with her friends while participating in a TikTok challenge,” Kumnova-Baci, an inspector in the city of Djakova, a town of 80,000 in southwestern Kosovo, told AFP.

The inspector immediately asked all teachers, relevant educators and school psychologists to investigate whether there are other similar incidents. A total of 22 cases of self-harm by girls were counted in the city over the course of a few weeks. The first incidents were recorded in January.

“Initially we thought they had been injured, deliberately, on the hands with sharp objects. But after medical examinations we realized that some girls had dozens of cuts all over their bodies,” explained Kumnova-Batsi.

Public opinion of Jakova was upset.

“It wasn’t just a shock to the education community,” she noted. “It was an earthquake for the whole world.”

TikTok, one of the most popular social media platforms with 1.5 billion users worldwide, has built part of its success on “challenges,” in which it asks users to play videos miming something: a joke, a song, a dance … a self-harm.

According to the mother of one of the victims, even children as young as 9 took part in this challenge after seeing it in a TikTok video.

“It’s something like a game for girls aged 9 to 17, who reproduce what they see on TikTok,” explained this mother, who only wanted to be identified by her initials E.Z.

“It’s become my worst nightmare,” she said, explaining that her daughter photographed her injuries one by one.

Like other parents, she refused to reveal her full name, while local authorities have banned the publication of the names of the victims, as they are all minors.

TikTok officially bans videos that promote self-harm or suicide.

However, for years experts, researchers, doctors and parents have been warning about the effects of social media on the mental health of their users, especially the youngest. Addiction, harassment, low self-confidence: the risks are known.

In 2023 US Chief Medical Officer Vivek Murthy had called on the US government to take steps to protect young social media users.

“We are facing a national mental health crisis affecting young people, and social media is a serious factor in it, one that we need to address urgently,” Murthy wrote in an official opinion.

In Djakovo, according to people AFP spoke to, a large proportion of the victims used self-harm to overcome their grief or to test their endurance of pain.

“It’s unbelievably hard to admit that our children intentionally hurt themselves,” said Besfort Krasnicki, a 45-year-old father of three.

To counter this “fad”, the educational community has launched new initiatives to inform young people about the dangers of social media.

According to psychologist Mirevete Aziri, these acts of self-harm are undoubtedly linked “to uncontrolled access to social media, even when children are at school or with their family”.

Kosovo’s judiciary has launched an investigation into the incident, while the police have been given permission to “take all measures” to clear up the case.

However, some residents believe that the only solution is to simply ban TikTok.

“The state should ban TikTok,” said E.Z. “The app publishes everything, even the most dangerous content.”