Girl barred from Chess Competition over 'Seductive' dress

There was public outrage over the barring  of a 12-year-old girl d from a Malaysian chess tournament by the organizers of the competition because she wore a “seductive” dress, her coach claimed.


On Tuesday, the Malaysian Chess Federation  said it would set up an inquest and denied that religious sensitivities had prompted the decision to bar the young player, in the Muslim majority country, as it seeks to manage public fallout. .
The trainer Kaushal Khandhar,in a widely-shared Facebook post,  said his pupil felt “harassed and humiliated” after being forced to withdraw in the middle of the the National Scholastic Chess Championship on April 14.

Demanding for an apology from the organizers on Facebook, the trainer said the girl had been told her knee-length dress was “seductive and a temptation from a certain angle far, far away”,

His post generated a lot of  furious responses on social media, with people commenting their displeasure at the incident and questioning how organizers could have deemed the clothing inappropriate.

Malaysia is generally regarded as a moderate Muslim country, but fears have grown in recent years that it is becoming increasingly conservative.

“I am shocked and disturbed that her dress is a problem,” Sieh Kok Chi, former secretary-general of the Olympic Council of Malaysia told AFP.

“She is just 12 years old. No one has the right to impose self-made rules. The chess officials should resign,” he said.

Nik Hishamuddin Nik Mustapa-the executive secretary of the chess body,  told AFP that the dress code had been implemented because the competition was played in a public school, which has stricter dress codes than other venues.

“We will call for a meeting of all the parties involved to resolve the matter amicably,” he added. “We lack chess talent in Malaysia. We want to see the emergence of good players.”