Lack of Safety for Unaccompanied Minors on SAA

<p>I am appalled by what I saw in the platinum class lounge at Cape Town International Airport on the 28th Sept 2016 between 16h30 - 17h15. One of SAA employees walked in with an unaccompanied minor - about 4 years old. She literally put the child on the couch, gave him juice & chips & walked away (all the while yapping on her phone on how she’s been dumped with a UM and now she has to be a nanny – is this not her job?) to the front desk to chat to her colleagues. The child was travelling to East London.</p> <p> </p> <p>She came back 10 min later and sat for 1 minute = 66 seconds to be exact & walk away again to the front desk to her colleagues and left this child alone. The child started crying & i eventually complained to the cleaning lady & other customers were also looking at this child. When she came back she just said this child is deaf I don’t know what to say to him.</p> <p> </p> <p>As a parent myself I’m outraged by this incident.</p> <p>1. SAA is your staff not trained how to look after UMs - as she kept referring on her phone talking about the child)</p> <p>2. Are parents of these children made aware of the risk & lack of safety their children are placed under?</p> <p>3. You always say safety is your 1st priority but in this instance it was not</p> <p>4. I honestly want feedback on what corrective action was implemented to this staff member and your front desk staff who allowed her to chat & hang out with them instead of looking after the UM.</p> <p> </p> <p>If this child was of another race - this child was black, I can assure you this would never have happened. Please nip this behaviour in the bud now as clearly this employee is so used to cutting corners & safety ( especially of a disabled child) was not a priority to her.</p> <p> </p> <p>I also want to alert parents what they are exposing their children to. Is that holiday, or visit to grandparents worth this trauma this child went through? Why not save extra funds for an additional ticket to have your own person accompany your child?</p> <p> </p> <p>Nothing irks me like ill-treatment of defenceless minors (worse here is a disabled minor) who do not even have a say in this matters.</p>