A 15-year-old British girl suffered a sad mishap last week. She was forced to undress during a check at Hurghada airport (Egypt) in order to prove that she was a woman, British media report. In her passport photo, she had long hair, much longer than when she went to customs.
Two Egyptian officials then demanded that the British woman follow them into a changing room. The adult accompanying her then vetoed this and managed to ensure that the teenager did not undress in front of the two men, but in front of a nurse.
The young woman had gone on holiday with a friend and her parents to the Red Sea when she encountered scepticism from customs officials, who apparently did not believe that the gender indicated on her passport was correct.
The British woman first had to remove her bra in front of the nurse. But that wasn’t enough. The officers demanded that she also remove her bottoms. But her friend’s mother intervened. After tough negotiations, she got the teenager to “tighten her shorts so that the absence of male genitalia was noted.” The passengers were then able to leave the airport.
The experience has deeply disturbed the young woman. “It was traumatic and embarrassing, I had never experienced such a situation,” she explained in an interview with the “Mirror” after her return from Egypt. She is even shocked, her father added.
