A mother claimed that her 1-year-old daughter was recently catcalled by a man riding a Personal Mobility Device (PMD) at a mall in Singapore.
Still in shock, she took to TikTok on Tuesday (28 July) to share about the incident.
“It pisses me off whenever I think about it,” said the mum.
According to the mother, she was with her daughter and a friend at NEX shopping centre when the incident occurred.
As her daughter couldn’t walk by herself yet, she was holding her hand for support while walking along a walkway on the second floor of the mall.
This was when a man on a PMD suddenly approached, saying, “Excuse me.”
Source: SingMalls
The woman thought they were taking up too much space, so she moved her daughter to the side.
To her surprise, the man wheeled up to her daughter and asked the toddler how old she was.
Then, he turned to the mother and asked if the toddler knew how to high five.
“I kept quiet because I was like trying to feel this guy out,” the mum said, adding that a lot of elderly people liked to talk to her daughter.
As she was trying to assess whether the man was dangerous, her friend immediately told the man that the toddler didn’t know how to high five.
However, this did not deter the man. He allegedly put his palm right in front of the child’s face to try to get her to give him a high five.
Thinking the man’s behaviour was strange, the mum tried to get her daughter away quickly, but the man kept following them.
To move faster, she then decided to carry her daughter.
Source: Ryutaro Tsukata on Pexels. For illustration purposes only.
However, the man kept speaking to the child, commenting that she was cute.
When the innocent toddler turned around to look at the man following them, the man purportedly exclaimed, “Hey, I think she knows that someone is talking to her.”
The mum said they then took the escalator to keep the man from following them.
However, as they left, the man allegedly called out, “Hey, Barbie doll”, referring to the toddler.
“That sh*t pissed me off, bro. Like why are you catcalling a 1-year-old?” the mother expressed.
Speaking to MS News, the mother, 23-year-old Jazzle, said the incident occurred on 24 July at around 4pm.
Source: Google Maps
She said the man on a PMD wore black and looked about 60 to 70 years old.
Jazzle said her daughter is too young to understand the situation, so she did not cry or show any reaction other than staring at the man, who grabbed her attention by being “quite loud”.
The mother added that she did not make any reports regarding the incident, as she cannot recall what the man looked like and felt that nothing much would come out of it.
Despite this, Jazzle expressed that she was angered and annoyed by the encounter.
“This was the first time this has happened to my child,” she shared. “And based off the comment section of my video, I realised mothers of other children have also experienced similar situations.”
“It’s sad that children and other women have to go through this so often,” she told MS News.
Also read: Woman in S’pore films TikTok video to defend herself from man who allegedly stalked her
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Featured image adapted from Ryutaro Tsukata on Pexels. For illustration purposes only.