In an ideal world, women should be able to feel safe enough to travel by themselves alone. However, it appears that some men would take advantage of this.
Recently, a Malaysian girl took to her social media accounts to recount the horrible experience she had whilst on a course to get her scuba diving licence at a dive centre on Tioman Island.
In a video shared by @risenning, she recounted how she had gotten harassed by one of the diving instructors at the dive centre and how she has noticed that many other women have also shared similar experiences.
The caption of the video reads, “Divers, avoid (instructor’s name) from (name of dive centre). Feel free to share this with your diver friends, especially the girls.”
“It’s a bit of an uncomfortable topic but this is not just a ‘story time’ of this thing that happened to me, it’s about this happening to several girls which means it’s a repeated pattern. This man, is not gonna stop sexually harassing girls especially solo female travellers.”
In her video, she shared that she had gone to the dive centre in Tioman back in August 2022 and that one of the male instructors had been acting very inappropriately with her.
“I had to leave the place without finishing my diving licence,” she explained.
Repeated pattern
She mentioned that she had reported the inappropriate behaviour to the other staff of the dive centre that the instructor’s behaviour is inappropriate.
“I was hoping that they can watch out for other female travellers going there. Turns out it did nothing. It’s still happening to other girls.”
She then shared that she had noticed that other female travellers had also left their negative experiences of the place on Google and a few of them complained specifically about the same instructor.
Meanwhile, another female traveller shared how he started off with saying seemingly harmless but inappropriate comments but it ended with her having to escape a situation which was scaring her and crossing lines physically.
“It turns out it was happening to 2 women staying/diving there at the same time, and together her and I had to escape the location and the island to feel safe.”
She added that upon reporting the issue to the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), it turns out that the instructor is not even an eligible PADI instructor.
“Don’t go to this place. DO NOT. If you see this guy please punch him in the face for me,” added the Malaysian.
Watch the video here.
We hope that the authorities look into the matter urgently to prevent more solo female travellers from getting harassed.
Also read: “I was slapped by an insane aunty” – M’sian Gets Assaulted by Random Aunty at LRT Station
