Airport Police Told Mum To ‘Prove’ She Was Lactating

A mum from Singapore has filed a complaint with German police after police at Frankfurt airport told her to 'prove' she was lactating by hand-expressing. Ms Gayathiri Bose, 33, was stopped by airport security after luggage x-ray screening showed a breast pump in her carry-on bag. The mum, who was travelling alone and making her way to her Paris-bound flight, told the BBC that a female security officer kept her passport and took her to a separate area for questioning,

"She asked me to open up my blouse and show her my breast. She then asked how come I didn't have anything attached to my breast, if I was lactating and expressing breastmilk. I said, there is no such thing that is permanently attached, we usually place the pump to our nipple and the machine does the job. She wanted me to show her by hand-expressing a little."

Ms Bose complied with the security officer's request to prove that she was lactating but said that the incident left her shocked and upset,

"I was just in shock, I was going through the motions. I was all by myself as well, and wasn't sure what would happen to me if they decided to make trouble for me. It was only when I came out of the room that I began to slowly understand what had just happened. I just started to cry, I was terribly upset."

Gayathiri, who is mum to a three-year-old and seven-month-old, said she was humiliated and is now considering taking legal action,

"When they finally cleared me of the matter, I told them that this is not the way to treat someone. I said do you know what you just did to me, you made me show my breast. While I do respect the need to do security checks on items that may seem suspicious, to outrage a person's modesty is definitely crossing the line."

The mum-of-two's breast pump was returned to her after testing and Gayathiri had incurred a delay of around forty-five minutes. A spokesman for the German federal police unit at Frankfurt Airport, Christian Altenhofen, told the BBC:

"If a suspected explosive is detected at an air safety control point, the baggage and the person must be searched. The measures you have described for a breastfeeding mother are clearly not included."

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