Canadian journalist tells how she helped teenage girl who she overheard being harassed on flight

A journalist has shared a warning after hearing a man harass a teenage girl on a plane
Unsplash/Suhyeon Choi
Katy Clifton25 March 2019

A Canadian journalist has told how she stepped in to help a teenage girl who was being harassed by a man on a flight.

Joanna Chiu, bureau chief for Star Vancouver, said she was on a flight when a man in his late thirties in the row behind asked a teenage girl who was sat alone to show him "dirty photos".

The journalist said that the man was “obviously delighted to be seated next to a teenager separated from the rest of her family” on the flight with an unnamed Canadian airline.

She wrote: “He started off by asking about her career plans and laughed when she said she wanted to be CEO and kept giving her ridiculous advice.

“She was friendly and he seemed to take that as a welcome queue to get very familiar and started teasing her and kept saying that he wanted to take her out to eat, which she was ignoring.”

Ms Chiu then said he “asked for a ‘dirty’ photo while leaning close to her”, which led the journalist to confront the man, who didn’t respond and went to use the toilet.

She continued: “Another woman seated behind him was listening and monitoring too and while the man was gone she let the teenager know that she had the right to change seats and that she was just behind her if she needed any help.

“I went to get a flight attendant and informed her of what was going on. They checked other witness accounts and the head of the flight service (a woman) asked the man to move.

“He resisted then started swearing at me and asked to talk to the boss and the head flight attendant said ‘I’m the boss, this is really serious and we could land the plane’.

“He moved. The attendants checked in with the young woman and wrote up a report."

Airline staff later gave Ms Chiu and the other woman cards thanking them for stepping in and helping.

In a Twitter thread that has now gone viral, Ms Chui praised the unnamed airline for "handling the situation so well" before calling for all adults to be on the lookout for these kind of situations.

She wrote: “I’m sure the young woman he targeted will be CEO someday or some other position of influence. She was in the middle of studying when he started harassing her.

“It’s sad these experiences are extremely common. All adults need to be on guard and know there are things we can do to intervene even when a crime hadn’t technically been committed yet.”

She also said that she heard his name and company so will be sending them a private message about the incident.

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