Asian women
face widespread harassment over breastfeeding in public, says new
survey
KUALA LUMPUR (REUTERS) - Women in Asia face widespread
harassment for breastfeeding in public, according to campaigners,
despite a new poll showing that most people in Asia say it should
be protected by law.
In a survey of 9,242 respondents in eight locations across the Asia
Pacific, online polling firm YouGov found the strongest advocates
of open breastfeeding lived in Australia, Hong Kong and
Thailand.
Men were slightly more supportive than women, the polling group
said, and single respondents were less enthusiastic than their
married counterparts.
The survey found 77 per cent of the respondents said public
breastfeeding is acceptable, and 75 per cent said it should be
protected by law.
Yet campaigners say the reality often falls short of the numbers
released by YouGov due to conservative moral values or a lack of
awareness about the benefits of breastfeeding.
"Mothers still get dirty looks from people who walk by. A lot of
people have been told off for breastfeeding in public," Dr Mythili
Pandi, president of the Breastfeeding Mothers' Support Group in
Singapore, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "A women who fed
her child on a public bus (in Singapore) was told she cannot expose
herself in public."
"But people are standing up for what they believe in. A mother
wants the best for her child, that includes nursing the child
whenever the child is hungry," said Dr Pandi, a doctor and a mother
of three.
Earlier this year, a photo of a mother on Singapore's subway who
was nursing a child without hiding her breast sparked a heated
debate after the image circulated widely, with critics saying she
should have covered up.
In Hong Kong, 40 per cent of breastfeeding mothers said they had
faced some sort of discrimination, including "unpleasant experience
and complaints", according to a 2016 survey by the United Nations
Children's Fund.
Senator Larissa Waters made Australian history last week by
becoming the first woman to nurse a baby in Parliament, after new
rules authorised lawmakers to breastfeed in the chamber.
The World Health Organisation recommends that babies be breastfed
exclusively for their first six months then eat a diet of breast
milk and other food until they are two years old.
Breast milk provides natural antibodies that protect against
illness, and is usually more easily digested than formula.
Advocates also say it strengthens ties between mother and child and
offers health benefits to the nursing mother.
-- ST