The incident took place on August 24. (Representative pic)

Two women in China have been accused of child abuse after they separated a crying child from her grandmother and locked her in the toilet of a plane to “educate her”. According to the BBC, the incident took place on August 24 onboard a Juneyao Airlines flight from the southwestern city of Guiyang to Shanghai. The little girl, who was travelling with her grandmother, started crying during the flight, following which the two women passengers locked the distressed child in the toilet, saying that they were trying to help others.

The incident went viral on the Chinese internet after one of the two women, identified as Gou Tingting, posted a video of herself carrying the girl inside the toilet. The clip also showed the other woman telling the child that she could only leave the bathroom if she stopped crying. They presented themselves as trying to help others on board, per the BBC. However, many people on the internet accused the two of “bullying” the child and lacking empathy.

The airline, on the other hand, said that the girl’s grandmother had agreed to let two women take the girl to the toilet. It also added that it had also spoken to the child’s mother, who was not on the flight, and who “expressed her understanding” of the women’s behaviour, The Guardian reported.

But shortly after the video was posted online, many criticized the women for lacking “empathy” and “bullying” the child. Responding to the criticism, Ms Gou said she “prefers to take action rather than be a bystander”. “I just wanted to calm the child down and let everyone rest,” she wrote on Chinese social media platform Douyin. The woman also explained that some passengers had “moved to the back of the plane to escape the noise” while others stuffed tissue papers into their ears.

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However, Ms Gou’s explanation did little to quell the backlash, and her social media account has since been set to private. “Children cannot control their emotions when they are one or two years old. What’s wrong with crying? Didn’t you cry when you were young too?” one user wrote, per the BBC.

Another user, concerned about the psychological impact on the girl, said, “We should be thinking about how public spaces can better accept and accommodate young children.”

But there were some who also defended the women, saying that their actions were justified as the girl’s grandmother had given her consent. “To be honest, some children cannot do without some education,” one user wrote.