A group of nine teenage girls (aged between 16 to 18) were prepared to have fun by the Siloso beach in Sentosa just like any other day, but instead they became the centre of attraction when a group of men surrounded them and started to take pictures of them without permission. The group of men appeared to be South Asians.
Shocked, the ladies immediately tried their best to get the men to stop taking photographs of them but to no avail. The men ignored their pleas and continued taking more photographs of them.
According to a local newspaper’s interview with the girls, Crystal (not her real name) said “all of (them) were very frightened when it happened”. “We felt very violated,” she added, “especially with the knowledge that our pictures are now in some stranger’s phones.”
It was only after “minutes” that Sentosa’s beach patrol officers (BPO) called on some policemen to disperse the crowd and to ease the situation.
When this incident circulated the public, there were many mixed responses to this issue. On one hand, some were as disgusted as the group of girls was. On the other hand, there were people who blamed the girls for wearing bikinis and claimed that it is only normal for guys to do that.
Lawyer Amolat Singh expressed his views on this issue- that Singapore has no ‘privacy laws’ and since there was “no intrusion of private properties” and “no harassment” then “the men did not do anything wrong”.
This is not the first time that such incidents had occurred in Singapore. Singaporean Nicole Tan, 22, told the media about a similar experience that she had back in 2011. She stated that she was made to feel like a “museum exhibit”.
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