Tourist 'traumatised' after being strip-searched at Sydney Airport: 'Take down your pants'
Keely Cats-Wells, 28, told Yahoo News her experience at Sydney Airport was 'dehumanising'.
A tourist was utterly devastated when security workers at Sydney Airport strip-searched her after she went through the security scanner, adamant the process was necessary if she wanted to fly.
Keely Cats-Wells, 28, often travels internationally for work, and her ileostomy bag, which is attached to her abdomen, has never been an issue. Not until last Thursday when she was going through security with her mum.
"As soon as I went under the scanner and I mentioned that I had an ileostomy, they said I needed to show it to them, that they needed to physically see it," the British woman who now lives in the US told Yahoo News. "They were incredibly insistent that the only way for me to get through security and go into the airport was for them to physically see it."
Security guards asked Cats-Wells to expose her ileostomy while a long queue of people waited behind her and others watched on while waiting for their bags. Despite desperately saying this wasn't standard procedure, workers persisted.
"They escorted me to another room and said take down your pants," she said, explaining the blind panic she felt at one point when she thought the female security worker tried to reach out and touch her ileostomy.
"I don't know what she was trying to do, but at one point I thought she was going to touch it... it felt dehumanising," Cats-Wells said.
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Sydney Airport apologises to tourist for security search
Cats-Wells, who is a disability rights activist in the US, reached out to Sydney Airport to notify them of her "traumatising experience" and said they were "very apologetic".
This sentiment was echoed by a Sydney Airport spokesperson who told Yahoo News they "are sorry for any distress that was caused as a result of this incident".
"From our initial assessment it appears that, although the correct procedures were followed, there were shortcomings in terms of communication and customer service," the spokesperson said.
After sharing her experience with others in the disabled community, many shared with Cats-Wells "this is the reason why" they don't travel themselves, as they fear they too might experience an upsetting situation like this.
"There's so much irony in my work... one week I'm advocating to President Biden about accessible transport in the US, and then here I am having an awful experience," she said. "I can't wait until we can just live and not have to continuously advocate."
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