Recently, a toddler girl over the age of one was locked in an airplane lavatory by two unknown women for causing a disturbance by crying, sparking controversy online.
On August 26, a netizen posted a video claiming that on August 24, on a flight from Guiyang to Shanghai, two middle-aged women, unable to tolerate the cries of a toddler girl over the age of one, directly took the little girl away from her grandmother and locked her in the airplane restroom to discipline her. During this time, they did not allow the grandmother to enter the restroom.
The video shows the girl crying loudly, frantically banging on the restroom door with her hands, crying out for her grandmother, desperately wanting her grandmother to take her out.
One woman scolded the girl: “Shut your mouth! Stop crying!”
Another woman said, “If you stop crying, Auntie will take you out to find your grandmother.”
The scolding woman even threatened, “When you stop crying, then we can go out. If you make a sound again, we will leave you here alone. Do you want to be left here alone? No? Then pipe down, and let’s wash up and leave.”
Ultimately, the girl stopped crying. While the two women were educating her, they also filmed a video, later releasing it online to “show off” their successful discipline.
The video stirred up heated discussion online. Many netizens expressed outrage, saying, “She’s just a two-year-old child, what does she understand? Why threaten her like that?” “Do you think such a young child understands? No! She’s scared!” “A child being carried away by strangers, taken to a confined environment! It sounds suffocating.” “The child must have been terrified, it could leave psychological scars for a lifetime, maybe she will fear riding elevators alone in the future.” “Goodness, she’s only a little over 1 year old, unbelievable.”
In response to this, on August 26, Shanghai Juneyao Air released a “clarification statement,” stating that the girl continued to cry during the flight, and to avoid disturbing other passengers, with the grandmother’s consent, two passengers carried the girl to the lavatory to discipline her, with the girl’s grandmother waiting outside the lavatory door throughout the process.
The airline also mentioned that they had spoken with the girl’s mother, who expressed understanding of the actions of the two passengers.
After the online controversy over the video of disciplining the girl, the netizen who posted the video has since deleted it.