This week in: Ridiculous Malaysian News!
A bright young girl was forced to pull out from the National Scholastic Chess Championship 2017 in Putrajaya because the organisers felt her dress was “seductive”.
The girl’s chess coach stated that the young girl felt harassed and humiliated by this. The coach stated in a Facebook post,
“In the middle of Round 2, without stopping the clocks, the chief arbiter informed my student that the dress she wore was improper.”
“It was later informed (by Chief Arbiter) to my student and her mother, that the Tournament Director deemed my student’s dress to be ‘seductive’ and a ‘temptation from a certain angle far, far away’.”
This was the dress these guys were talking about, by the way:
How on earth is that remotely “seductive”?! And she’s just 12 years old, too!
Later that night however, the Chief Arbiter apologised to the young girl and told her that there wasn’t anything wrong with what she was wearing. However, the Tournament Director would not allow her to continue on in the competition if she continued wearing the dress.
She was then given the option to go to a nearby mall to buy slacks in order to compete in the next round at 9 a.m. the following day.
However, the girl and her mother were only told this at around 10 p.m., so there was no way they could go out to the store in time for the next round.
The girl’s mother found this ridiculous and decided to call the Director to ask if he could make an exception. He informed her that he would call her back once he discussed this with the Chief Arbiter, but he never called her back.
Because of this, the mother had no choice but to pull the poor girl out of the competition!
The girl’s coach went on to say,
“This bright young girl was recently the champion of her district in MSS Kuala Lumpur and has shown tremendous potential in Chess. This incident has left her extremely disturbed, and embarrassed.”
He ended his Facebook post, demanding an apology from the Tournament Director within the next 5 days, and if there was no response from his side, he threatened to take legal action.
This young girl deserves so much better than to be judged for what she wears. We hope the Tournament Director issues an apology to her soon!
Also read: Some Malaysians Were Angry Over Malaysian Olympic Diver for Displaying ‘Money’ Hand Gesture