By Olivia Miwil - December 12, 2021 @ 11:17am
SEMPORNA: Another incident of tourists taking indecent pictures of Bajau Laut or sea gypsies in the district has emerged yesterday.
Jefry Musa, who was teaching at a community-based school "Iskul Sama Dilaut Omadal" here, was irked when a group of tourists on a registered tourist boat came to the Omadal island during a schooling session.
He said they stopped in front of the school and started asking the shirtless Bajau Laut children to swim for them to take pictures.
"As the situation went out of control to the extent of disturbing my students, I went out (from the classroom) and asked them to refrain from taking nude pictures of the kids as it is rude and unethical.
"They nodded but continued to take photographs afterward. We welcome tourists, but not like this.
"They should not think that by just giving these children food justifies their disgusting behaviour," he said, adding that tourists should not be disrespectful to underprivileged people.
The 28-year-old teacher from Kuantan, who had taught two years in Kampung Bangau-Bangau and second year at Omadal island here, added that it was not the first time such an incident happened.
He said Omadal island is not listed as one of the tourist destinations in Semporna but the tour operators will bring their customers there by requests.
Two months ago, a similar incident happened at Mabul island off where a tourist recorded himself on tik tok video dumping the rice he was eating on a sea gypsy child.
In that 53-second footage, he had implied that the sea gypsies would come to tourists to get food from them and asked others to get old clothes for them.
However, a humanitarian activist who wanted to be known only as Dr Jacknaim, defended that 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 onto their boats asking for more.
The then government had warned tourists from handing out food for their own safety.
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