Child abuse scandal
> China travel giant suspends two officials
BEIJING: China’s leading online travel agency said yesterday it had suspended two top officials after disturbing video footage of workers abusing toddlers at a company day care went viral, sparking nationwide outrage.
Clips began to surface last week showing young children of Ctrip employees being roughly handled, and punished by being force-fed what parents claimed was spicy mustard at the company’s Shanghai headquarters.
Shi Qi, a group vice-president, and vicepresident Feng Weihua were suspended by Ctrip pending an internal investigation, according to a company letter circulated online.
A Ctrip spokesman said yesterday that the letter was authentic.
Police last week said they had detained three day care staff for suspected abuse.
The company said the day care centre has since been shut.
Ctrip is China’s biggest online booking site for air, rail and other travel. It bought British flight search app Skyscanner for US$1.7 billion (RM7.1 billion) last year.
After the video of the abuse went viral, subsequent clips emerged showing irate parents trying to take revenge by forcing what appeared to be spicy mustard into the mouth of one of the accused female staff members, as police sought to hold them back.
Another clip showed the same woman on her knees, bowing and apologising profusely for her “errors”.
Ctrip had outsourced daily operations of the day care centre to Shanghai Women, part of a nationwide organisation that aims to protect women’s rights in China.
“It is hard to imagine that we are coding upstairs and you are abusing our babies downstairs,” wrote one man on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, claiming to be the father of a child that attended the day care.
He added that it had been very hard to get his child admitted to the day care, which has a waiting list.
About 100 children, all aged below three, attended the day care centre in the past three months, Ctrip said. – AFP