Two women face criticism after locking crying toddler in plane toilet to teach her a lesson
Two strangers sparked outrage after locking a crying child inside an airplane toilet to "teach her a lesson."
The incident occurred on a Juneyao Airlines flight to Shanghai on August 24.
According to reports, the child's grandparents had been unable to calm her down despite their efforts. The child had become so disruptive that some passengers resorted to using tissues to block their ears, The Sun reported.
Gou Tingting, the woman who posted a video of the incident on her now private Weibo account, claimed she was trying to help other passengers who were disturbed by the girl's noise.
“I just wanted to educate the child and let everyone have a good rest,” Tingting wrote in a comment. She and another woman ordered the child to keep quiet for three minutes if she wanted to see her grandmother again.
It was reported that the little girl stayed silent for the remaining two hours of the flight.
Upon landing in Shanghai, police intervened in the incident. The police talked to the grandmother about her role in the situation, but no action was taken against the two women who had confined the child in the airplane restroom.
The incident sparked outrage on social media and accused the two women of bullying the child.
“Children cannot control their emotions when they are one or two years old. What’s wrong with crying? Didn’t you cry when you were young too?” one user wrote on Weibo.
Another one said: “We should be thinking about how public spaces can better accept and accommodate young children.”
Meanwhile, some users understood what Tingting and the other woman did, saying that "some children cannot do without some education."
Internal investigation
Juneyao Airlines later said that the child's grandmother had given permission for the two women to "educate" her granddaughter. In a statement, it acknowledged the situation and announced that an internal investigation into the issue is taking place.
"A stranger taking a child away is also a decision by the individual and we are not making a judgment on that. The flight attendant cannot be in the cabin all the time," it wrote.
"When the child cries, we can certainly try and remind guardians to do their best to calm them down, but if the child continues to cry there is not a lot that the flight attendant can do. And if during the time when the flight attendant is not around, somebody decides to act as an individual and take the child away, we accept that this is an emergency situation," the airline continued.
"But the child's family could also have asked strangers or reported it to the police. If the flight attendant had noticed, they would have helped the parent or guardian to sort the matter out."
To provide a more peaceful travel experience for some passengers, some carriers like Turkish-Dutch Corendon Airlines and Singapore-based Scoot allow passengers to pay a premium for a seat in a section of the aircraft where children are not permitted.
In 2012, Malaysia Airlines pioneered a child-free cabin on all flights operated by its Airbus A380 aircraft. Meanwhile, in 2013, Air Asia X established a quiet zone in the front section of its economy class, specifically for passengers aged 12 and older.
