Staying at hostels while travelling is not only a budget-friendly way to tackle accommodations but also a good way to find new friends from all over the world. However, one Canadian tourist had a nightmarish incident when she stayed at a hostel in Kuala Lumpur recently as she was sexually harassed by a fellow guest.
Worse, the hostel receptionist didn’t offer much help when she complained about the guest, visibly shrugging before telling her to “keep an eye out”. Moreover, the hostel also refused to check CCTV footage to identify the man, despite there being a visible camera pointed at the location where the incident happened.
Posted on the r/solotravel subreddit on Reddit, the woman, a 27-year-old from Canada shared that the hostel was an apartment building and occupied several units in the same hall. When she returned to the hostel at around 2 am, a “very drunk” tall man came stumbling from another unit, asking her if she wanted to make out with him.
Trying not to be rude, the woman smiled and politely declined. This repeated a couple more times with the man trying to tell her to go to a sauna with him and again, the woman politely declined.
That’s when things escalated. The woman shared,
“He came uncomfortably close to me and asked where I was from. I told him I was from Canada and returned the question. He answered, ‘Belarus. Can I have a kiss?’ By now he was directly between me and the door.
“I stepped back and sternly told him ‘No. I’m going to bed now’. He grumbled something, tried to grab my arm and I pulled away. Then he slapped my ass and finally stumbled away, still saying gross things over his shoulder.”
The next morning, the woman went to the front desk and told the receptionist about the incident, hoping that the management could take action against the guest. After describing what the man looked like, the receptionist didn’t offer much assistance or assurance.
“The woman I spoke to shrugged, told me to keep an eye out and maybe let them know who it was if I saw him around. She was clearly looking for a reason to do nothing and settled on my description not being enough to identify him.
“This was not a very big hostel, I would be very surprised if they had more than two Belarusians staying at a time and they screen and scan everyone’s passport at check-in. They also had visible cameras pointed at the exact spot we were standing, which I pointed out to them, but they just ignored that comment.”
Disappointed, the woman asserted that she would have appreciated it if the hostel could treat the matter seriously. She said that the hostel management could’ve offered to pull the camera footage, show photos of guests matching the description of the man who harassed her or even offered to help her file a police report.
However, the hostel did not of that and ignored the problem. The woman stressed that after the incident, she was left feeling dismissed and frustrated that women have to just “suck it up and deal with crap”.
This is a horrible and unfortunate incident which should not have happened to anyone! We genuinely hope she is able to recover from this soon. What do you guys think the hostel should’ve done in that situation? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
