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Air New Zealand is not backing
down from a ban on seating unaccompanied children next to male passengers on
flights, despite an official complaint by National Party political correctness
spokesman Wayne Mapp. He has filed a formal submission
to the Human Rights Commission against the policy, which is used by both
Qantas and Air New Zealand. The submission comes three months
after revelations that an Auckland man was asked to change seats with a woman
passenger on a Qantas flight from Christchurch to Auckland to ensure he did
not sit next to an unaccompanied child. The commission has received 30
complaints since and is still trying to set up a mediation process to deal
with them. However, Air New Zealand spokesman
Mike Tod said yesterday that the airline had not changed its policy since the
issue hit the headlines. Dr Mapp said: "The Air New
Zealand/Qantas decision not to seat unaccompanied children beside male
passengers is a breach of both the fundamental principles or our democracy
and the Human Rights Act. "The basis for this policy is
that men are a greater risk to children than women." Neither Air New Zealand nor Qantas
have been able to point to a case where a man did something harmful to an
unaccompanied child on an aircraft. The heart of New Zealand's
anti-discrimination law was that men and women had equal rights and were
entitled to equal treatment, Dr Mapp said. The airlines had breached these
fundamental principles by treating men and women differently on the basis of
sex. The airlines could not make this policy on the basis of greater risk. "It would be wrong, for
instance, for an airline to have a policy not to seat children beside young
Maori men on the basis of the higher crime rate of young Maori men, compared
to the general population. "No airline would even think
of having such a policy. They would know it would be both morally and legally
wrong," he said. Parents had a right to have their
children seated where they could be safely monitored and protected, but had
no more right to insist that a child not be seated next to a man than they
would if they asked the airline not to seat their child next to a European or
Christian. Airlines had a duty to provide a
safe environment for all their passengers, Dr Mapp said. This duty was greater with regard
to children as they were more vulnerable and needed greater supervision. "Clearly they need to be
seated where they can be more easily monitored by airline staff." But airlines had a duty to manage
seating arrangements for children without discriminating on the basis of sex,
he said. The airlines had yet to justify their policies. A spokesman for the commission
said it was still trying to identify the best process for setting up a
mediation involving all the parties. -------------------- CAPTION: Wayne Mapp: Official complaint. |
