Harassment of breastfeeding mothers

Unbelieveable.

Sharleen Salmon, who works at the Westfield Mall in Marion, Adelaide, said she felt harassed and embarrassed when a woman and a cleaner complained about her using the room during her half-hour lunch break.

The young mum, who recently returned to work to support her family, said: "I was in a private area (in the parents room) behind the curtain and this cleaner just walked in on me and watched what I was doing," the Guardian Messenger reported.

"She told me the parents room was for parents and breastfeeding only - and that I wasnt allowed to eat lunch in there.

Ms Salmon said she was using a standard breast pump to express milk to feed her baby daughter Justice, who was being cared for by her father.

Ms Salmon, who expresses milk once a day, said she was followed back to work by a security guard and a police officer, who said a formal complaint had been made to centre management.

"They told me that a little kid had been running around in the parents room and had briefly seen what I was doing and had complained to its mum," she said.

"The mum then complained to security and the cleaner came in to inspect what I was doing. They told me the complaint was that there was a topless woman eating her lunch in the parents room.

"Its tough enough that I have to do this during my break, but for a complaint to be made about me doing it, is really upsetting.

Westfield management did not return several calls for comment

No, I take that back: it's quite believeable. During the course of my interviews with Sudanese women living in Brisbane, I've heard some genuine horror stories about breastfeeding in public, and frankly most of them are scared to do it, either because they've been told it's illegal or because of people like that Westfield security guard and the cleaner and the unspeakably stupid woman who complained and dobbed in that poor lady for committing the 'crime' of expressing breast milk in a parent's room specially set aside so that breastfeeding mothers can hide themselves from public view. They shouldn't bloody well have to in the first place, mind (though the mechanics of expressing may require it), but the idea that they can be followed and harassed by ignoramuses such as the woman who made the complaint, and that security guard and cleaner is utterly appalling.

Get this- a large number of the women I have interviewed compare Australia to Egypt when it comes to our attitude to breastfeeding in public. Egypt. A very conservative, muslim country where most women wear headscarves. It really is that bad here.

I'd like to see anyone who complains about or harassess any woman who is acting to provide her baby with breastmilk, either through breastfeeding or expressing, be dragged off and questioned by the cops themselves, the same as if they harassed or intimidated any other person going about their normal business. As for that woman who made the complaint based on what her child saw- I can't believe someone would teach their kid that boobs are evil and bad and something to be complained about. For christ's sake, what a twisted thing to do to a child.

Breastfeeding is a fucking right. Anyone who behaves otherwise and tries to impinge on that right ought to be slapped. Not to mention publicly shamed. Go news.com.au for bringing the story to public attention.