The backpacker’s experience was documented on Instagram which led to mixed responses from the public.
CAM, a French backpacker, posted on Instagram on the 12th of January about her experience hiking the trails of Mount Bromo, East Java. In her post, CAM alleged that a local man, whose identity was not named, attempted a sexual assault on her. The Instagram post has amassed more than 333,000 Likes thus far, sparking mixed responses from the netizens.
The French backpacker recounted that the incident began when she bumped into a local man who offered to give her a ride to the mountain’s King Kong Hill for free. Once they arrived at the said location, the local man decided to stick around and give CAM company.
“I almost hadn’t eaten all day, and he told me that the restaurant not far from here was closed,” CAM wrote in her Instagram post. “He told me he would come back with snacks. I asked him if he wanted me to give him some money for it, but he did not want the money.”
The two had a chat afterwards, though CAM noted that she had made it clear to the local man that she was keen on spending the rest of the evening by herself inside the tent. As the local man overstayed his welcome, the backpacker started sensing danger.
“He asked me for a ‘1-minute kiss’ multiple times,” CAM later wrote. “Then he even said, ‘I’ll give you money,’ then after a while he was like ‘Okay, give me money then, I want 100K (6.5$),’ then ‘OK, 50K and I’ll leave.’ By now, I had already started packing my bag, then he went ‘Stay here, I’ll bring some friends.'”
Horrified by the local man’s behaviour, CAM decided to pack her bags, fled from her tent, and later “arrived at the homestay, crying,” she noted. Nonetheless, not all netizens were sympathetic to her experience, with some of them pointing out that there was a possibility that the French backpacker’s account was influenced by racial bias.
As one Instagram account commented on CAM’s post, “If you don’t have the money and you’re just hitchhiking your way around Indonesia, then go back home immediately. If we Asians tried to pull this [expletive] in your country, you’d deport us in a heartbeat.”
Some netizens, however, came to the backpacker’s defence, with one Instagram account asserting in the comment section, “There’s so much victim-blaming in the comments. What happened is not her fault. It’s a messed-up world where a woman can’t go wherever she wants at night without having to deal with disgusting men.”
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