China: Two Women Lock 1YO Toddler In Plane's Toilet To Discipline Her

Two women in China separated a crying one-year-old girl from her grandmother and locked her in the aeroplane restroom to allegedly discipline her on August 24. The women were not related to the child. The incident came to light after one of the women posted a video of the girl shouting for help from the restroom. The women were heard saying, "If you stop crying, you can go out” and “If you stop crying, auntie will take you back to grandma." The incident happened on a Juneyao Airlines domestic flight from Guiyang, a city in south-west China, to Shanghai. 

Airline Issues Statement; Says Grandma Was Aware 

The child was travelling with her grandmother to Shanghai when two women locked her in the restroom. The incident caused an outage on Chinese social media after one of the women, identified as Gou Tingting, uploaded a video to the local social media site Douyin.

She reportedly said on Douyin, “Many passengers were using tissues to block their ears. Some had moved to the back of the plane to escape the noise.” However, the video has now been deleted. Local media reports said the grandmother was not aware that the incident was being filmed.

Juneyao Airlines said in a statement that the duo took the grandma's consent, who was allegedly waiting right outside the restroom, before locking the crying child. The airline added that their team later spoke to the child’s mother, who "expressed her understanding” of the situation.

Netizens have expressed concern over the child's wellbeing. One social media user wrote on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, "The grandmother and the two aunts should be sued, and social services should intervene. If there are parents like this, children will suffer in the future.”

Similar Incident In China: Father Tells 3-Year-Old To Fill Bowl With Tears To Watch TV 

A father from Yulin in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region of southern China has sparked controversy after punishing his three-year-old daughter, Jiajia, in an unconventional manner for watching too much television. The incident occurred while the father was preparing dinner and called Jiajia to the dining table.

Absorbed in her television show, Jiajia did not respond, prompting her father to turn off the TV in frustration. This led to Jiajia crying, and her father decided on an unusual punishment. He handed her an empty bowl and said, "You can watch TV again when your tears fill up this bowl," according to the South China Morning Post.

The girl's reaction to this punishment was captured in a widely shared video recorded by her mother and posted on Douyin, a popular short-form video platform in China. The video shows Jiajia holding the bowl under her face, trying to collect her tears, and squeezing her eyes to produce more tears. After holding the bowl for over ten seconds, she expressed to her parents that her hands were tired and that it was "impossible for her to manage this task."

Her father then asked her to smile, leading to a poignant image of Jiajia giggling with tears still on her face, which amused her parents, according to the mother. However, the video did not sit well with many viewers and led to widespread outrage on social media. Numerous people criticised the father's behaviour towards his young daughter, calling it inappropriate and harmful.

Previously, parents punished their children for not completing homework by forcing the child to watch TV all night. The parents took turns watching the child to ensure he stayed awake. Initially, the child was content, eating snacks while watching television, but eventually, he became exhausted and began crying. He was not allowed to sleep until 5 am.

These incidents have sparked discussions about the appropriateness of such punishments and the psychological impact they might have on young children. Experts often emphasise the importance of constructive and compassionate discipline, arguing that punitive measures like these can lead to long-term emotional and psychological harm.