Tourists told to stop mistreating sea gypsies for social media "likes"

 By Olivia Miwil - October 30, 2021 @ 5:16pm

Tourist throwing his leftover food to sea gypsie kid off Mabul island. - Screenshot from video

SEMPORNA: Tourists should not mistreat sea gypsies community to get more "likes" for their social media.

A humanitarian activist who wanted to be known only as Dr Jacknaim referred to a tik tok video of a man dumping the rice he was eating on a sea gypsy child, allegedly taking place in Mabul Island, off here.

The 53-second footage also implied that the sea gypsies would come to tourists to get food from them and asked others to get old clothes for them.

"As a humanitarian activist who is involved with the island community, including the sea gypsy people, I am feeling frustrated and angry at such behaviour.

"Regardless of your excuses ... whether the resort is fenced, thus it was difficult to give them food properly or the operator did not allow guests to feed them, it does not warrant to make a derogatory video like this.

"Whoever comes to islands in Sabah especially in Semporna should stop treating sea gypsies as animals in zoos," he said, adding that those sea gypsies communities should also be empowered.

Dr Jacknaim, who has been involved in community projects at the islands for 10 years, said all this while the sea gypsies have been eating seafood and tapioca as their staple food.

He said although the community did not live a wealthy lifestyle, all they needed was education and social transformation, as well as empowerment as sea natives.

In 2018, a similar incident involving tourists handing out food to the sea gypsies ended when the people climbed to their boat to ask for more.

The then government had warned the people from handing out the food for their own safety.