Two passengers on a domestic flight between Guiyong and Shanghai in China faced strong backlash from Chinese social media users after a video was posted online showing them locking a crying toddler in an airplane toilet to “discipline” him.
The incident occurred on August 24 on board a Juneyao Airlines flight when the crying toddler could not be calmed down, prompting two unrelated women to intervene and offer to help the boy’s grandmother.
In order to “educate” the little boy, the two women took him into one of the airplane toilets and told him that he was not allowed to come out until he stopped crying.
The incident went viral when one of the two women involved posted a video online of them toilet-training the one-year-old boy, but the reaction she received may not have been what she expected.
Amid growing backlash over the incident, Juneyao Airlines was forced to launch an investigation, which revealed that what happened to the toddler was done with the permission of his grandmother, with whom he was travelling.
“In order not to disturb the other passengers, two passengers took the child to the toilet with the consent of his grandmother to educate him,” the airline said in a statement.
“During this process, the child’s grandmother accompanied him and waited at the toilet door.”
The statement continued: “We verified the situation by phone with the child’s mother. She said she learned the whole story from her mother and expressed her understanding for the help provided by the two passengers on board.”
The BBC reports that the phenomenon of “bear children,” as the Chinese call it, has become an increasingly polarizing issue in China, and there is growing debate about how children should be punished when they throw a tantrum in public.
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