A Melbourne mother has gone to the media after her local Westfield refused to put up signage to stop Muslim women praying in the parents’ room at her local shopping centre.
Doncaster woman Tatjana, who did not use her last name (why would she want to put her full name on this ridiculous complaint?!), told the Manningham Leader she felt she was put out when she went into a parents’ room to change and breastfeed her son but had to wait a few minutes because she saw a Muslim woman was using the secluded space to pray.
“As I continued to sit there and feed my baby, one of the toddlers whom I assumed was her child, pulled open the curtains and there was the woman on the floor praying,” Tatjana told the Manningham Leader.
“Now I don’t have issues with religion or praying, but I was shocked that this family thought it was OK to take up this room to pray, while my son was denied a feeding room.”
Feeling miffed at the situation the mother-of-two said she hoped no other parent had to “endure” the same treatment and “would like to see signage in these rooms explaining what they are used for.”
Tatjana reportedly contacted the centre’s management but when they said they would only patrol the cubicles if they found “publicly indecent or dangerous” activity was taking place she was disappointed with the TOTALLY FAIR ENOUGH response.
Tatjana said: “I thought it was a cop-out and brush of the shoulder response. I’m sure if I was in a prayer room feeding my baby, there would be outrage.”
Some agree that the mum should not have been inconvenienced (for a few minutes) by a woman praying.
Others have thankfully come to the defence of the unknown Muslim mother, saying the outrage is unwarranted.
Some savvy online pundits have commented that generally, daily Islamic prayers only go for 3-5 minutes. They’ve also said since the religious woman had young kids it may have been the only space she could take them to and trust that they would be safe while she focused on her harmless ritual.
Under a news Facebook post about the compliant one Muslim mother wrote:
I’ve actually once found a women breastfeeding in the Adelaide airport prayer room when I went to pray and I had no issue with it! I didn’t go running off to the media to get attention. I am sometimes guilty of this when I go breastfeed my twins I do pray quickly in there. Praying takes no more than 5 minutes! In saying this if I can see a mother waiting I would let her breastfeed while I change the twins then go in to pray when no one’s there.
Westfield Doncaster spokesperson Julia Clarke seemed to find no issue with the woman using the space to pray since she reportedly told the Manningham Leader parents’ rooms are “an amenity provided to customers for the caring needs of infants and children while at Westfield’s shopping centres.”
VIDEO: Pauline Hanson talks about Muslims in her maiden speech.
