Strangers lock crying toddler in plane bathroom to ‘educate her’

An incident has gone viral after a woman posted a video of herself carrying a stranger’s child into a plane toilet cubicle to “educate” her about crying, during a flight.

An incident which saw two women lock a crying toddler in an aeroplane toilet has sparked an online debate in China on how to manage children in public spaces. Picture: Weibo.

Two female airline passengers have sparked an online debate after they locked a stranger’s crying child in the bathroom to “educate her,” as seen in a video blowing up online.

The incident transpired on August 24 on a Juneyao Airlines flight from Guiyang to Shanghai, China, CNN reported.

The child, who was travelling with her grandparents, reportedly sobbed non-stop during the nearly three-hour flight, the airline wrote in a statement posted to Chinese social media, The NY Post reports.

Fed up with the tot’s in-flight tantrum, the aforementioned female travellers reportedly transported her to the bathroom to “educate her.” Shockingly, the child’s grandmother consented to the treatment.

Two women lock a crying toddler in an aeroplane toilet to “educate her”, according to reports. Picture: Weibo

The incident has sparked an online debate in China on how to manage children in public spaces. Picture: Weibo.

The punitive pair then shared the video of this alleged “potty training” on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

In the clip, the women can be seen seated in the locked lavatory with the wailing infant, who was reportedly just one year old.

One of the women is heard saying, “If you stop crying, aunty will take you back to grandma” and “We won’t let you out unless you stop crying.”

As the girl stopped crying, the woman filming the video picked her up and told her: “If you make any noise again, we’ll come back (to the bathroom).”

Gou was initially proud of her cruel and unusual-seeming form of discipline, according to The NY Post.

In the aforementioned post, she wrote that the tantrum was so disruptive that “many passengers were using tissues to block their ears” while others “had moved to the back of the plane to escape the noise.”

Meanwhile, the little girl’s mother, who was not on the plane, reportedly sympathised with the self-appointed aeroplane posse’s behaviour, the airline wrote in a statement.

The video was subsequently deleted following the uproar.

Meanwhile, Juneyao Airlines’ reps have since condemned the pairs’ actions and apologised for the incident and “oversight of the crew,” the state-run Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

However, the lavatory lockup disturbed social media users, who thought that the punishment was cruel and inappropriate.

“Adults in their 30s can have emotional breakdowns, but people don’t allow toddlers to have theirs,” snarked one Weibo critic about the overzealous-seeming clampdown.

Another wrote, “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.”

“When will these people understand that babies have the right to cry and the right to travel, they are part of society, and so are babies!!!!!!!” declared a third.

A fourth exclaimed, “We were all once children … Don’t be a cold-blooded adult.”

Surprisingly, some agreed with the duo’s actions, writing, “To be honest, some children cannot do without some education.”

This article originally appeared in The NY Post and was reproduced with permission.