An allegation of police insensitivity to a sexual harassment victim is drawing criticism on the internet today after a story recounting the incident was posted on Pantip Thailand’s largest online forum.
The post, from the harassment victim’s friend, claims that a homeless man touched her friend’s breast, but that when the woman reported the case to the local police they shrugged it off.
From Pantip:
“My friend took a van to university, and a man in the back seat reached out and grabbed her breast, so she told the driver to take her to the police station. People in the van complained and said she didn’t have to make a big deal out of it, so instead the driver called the police for her. The van stopped and waited for the police’s arrival. The entire time people in the van were frustrated and complaining to her. The police took all of us to the station for questioning, but all we got was ‘people wouldn’t come to the police with a nonsense case like this’.
My friend cried and I stood up for her that the man has violated her. The police performed a search on the man and found nothing but a Buddhist dharma book, lottery, and a THB20 bill – no ID. The police agreed to lock him up for a few days, and when my friend’s mom came, they pretended to be nice. It is harder to live in this world, don’t you think so?”
One commenter suggested it would be a bigger deal if he the man had grabbed the policeman’s hat instead of the girl’s breast, MThai reported.
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