12 year old Malaysian girl “harassed and humiliated” at Chess Tournament! Should the organizer and tournament director be suspended for their action?
12-year-old girl forced to withdraw from chess tournament for ‘seductive’ outfit
Posted on 28 April 2017 – 06:42pm
Last updated on 28 April 2017 – 07:03pm
Ashwin Kumar
KUALA LUMPUR: It was check mate for a 12- year -old girl who was forced to withdraw from a chess championship after the organisers said her attire was “seductive”.
Malaysian chess coach Kaushal Khandhar said the girl, who is his student and a school chess champion of her district in the city, felt “harassed and humiliated” by the actions of the tournament director and chief of the National Scholastic Chess Championship 2017 on April 14 in Putrajaya.
“Somewhere in the middle of Round 2, without stopping the clocks, the chief arbiter informed my student that the dress she wore was improper,” said Kaushal in a Facebook post on Thursday night.
His Facebook post further described that the chief arbiter told the girl and her mother that the tournament director deemed that his student’s dress was “seductive” and a “temptation from a certain angle far, far away”.
Kaushal condemned the statement by the tournament director and said it was “completely out of line” and “ridiculous”.
He said after the incident, the chief arbiter had apologised to the girl after a discussion and assured her that the earlier decision had nothing to do with her attire.
However, the chief arbiter said that she was not allowed to wear the dress due to the alleged orders from the tournament’s director.
Kaushal said the girl and her mother were given the option of going to a nearby mall to purchase slacks for the next round of the tournament which began at 9am the following day.
However, the shops in the area were closed and would not be open in time for the next round of the tournament.
Kaushal said the girl’s mother called the tournament director regarding the matter before the next round began. The tournament director promised to call her back after a discussion with the chief arbiter, but this did not happen.
“He would not answer or return any calls from my student’s mother. This situation led the girl’s mother to withdraw her from the tournament altogether.
“This incident has resulted in a waste of time and money which was invested before, during and after the tournament on coaching, registration fees, travelling, accommodation and other incurred costs,” he added.
Kaushal described his student as “a bright young girl” who has shown “tremendous potential in chess.” However, the incident has left her “extremely disturbed, and embarrassed,” he added.
Kaushal is demanding for a public apology from the tournament director of the championship.
A photo of the girl’s dress that was shared by Kaushal showed her wearing a short sleeved black and orange striped dress that stops just above her knees.
The Malaysian Chess Federation was not available for comment at press time.
Source: http://www.thesundaily.my
Well at least the situation in cases like that is often a lot better than it was in the past when it was considered acceptable to physically punish children quite severely and men in positions of power who were sexually attracted to children and scapegoated the blame for that onto the child would badly hurt children to punish them for their imagined offence against their “respectability”.