ABU DHABI // Residents have expressed their shock at a photograph of a young boy using a potty in public outside a shop in a mall.
The toddler, whose trousers were down, is seen accompanied by a woman, as curious shoppers walk past the Sacoor Brothers menswear store on the ground floor of Yas Mall.
“It’s very shameful,” a 20-year-old Emirati university student said while glancing at the photo. It is circulating widely on the Whatsapp messaging service.
“I don’t think that’s his mother. She must be his nanny. Why did she allow him to do it in a public place?”
A bystander managed to take the photo of the woman, described as a Westerner, who let a toddler use the potty in the middle of a walkway outside the shops.
On Tuesday, a salesman at Sacoor Brothers said he was unaware of the incident.
“Police came here yesterday,” he said. “They asked us if we remembered seeing the woman and the child. We didn’t notice them since we were busy.”
A member of the mall’s security staff said the incident was discussed during a daily morning briefing, but declined to elaborate.
“It could have been avoided,” said a project manager who visits the mall regularly. “It’s not right especially that the toilet is just nearby.”
Ladies toilets are located near Sacoor and La Martina shops.
“Maybe the woman didn’t see this toilet,” said a Filipina cleaner. “We have a waiting area, five toilet cubicles, including one specially for the disabled, and a baby changing room.”
A 32-year-old Emirati woman who was shopping with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and her maid at the Bershka clothing store, said: “Accidents happen but the woman should have been more responsible. It’s not good. She should not have allowed it to happen.”
“It’s not right for a mother or his nanny to teach the child to pee in public,” said a 34-year-old Palestinian-Jordanian housewife who has lived in the UAE for eight years. “If she thinks the toilet seats aren’t that clean, why didn’t she take the potty inside the ladies’ toilet?
A clerk at a perfume shop said he was disturbed.
“The woman is so irresponsible,” said the 33-year-old sales assistant from the Philippines. “What if it happened in front of our shop?”
Developer Aldar, which owns and manages Yas Mall, declined to comment on the incident.
“It is unacceptable in Arab society and will affect the child,” said Dr Ahed Bisharat, a consultant paediatrician and head of general paediatrics at Burjeel Hospital.
rruiz@thenational.ae
