Australian Retailer Removes Child Bride Costume From Shelves Following Outcry

Screenshot via Shutterstock

A bride costume for children ages four to six was pulled by Australian retailer Kmart following a petition for its removal. However, Kmart’s decision to take down the garment has been met with mixed responses.

The Bride Costume, priced at A$6 (US$4.10), was criticized by a mother named Shannon B, who later created a petition on Change.org asking for the “offensive” outfit to be removed.

The woman called the dress “beyond inappropriate” and “offensive,” adding that the store had a “social responsibility to pull this item off [its] shelves immediately.”

Shannon B went on to detail that “12 million children… as young as six years old—the size of this ‘costume’” are reportedly sold or married off by their family members against their will each year. She also described child marriage as “child abuse and torture in its worst forms.”

The campaign has garnered a little over 200 signatures, enough to drive Kmart to discontinue the piece’s retail.

On the flip side, customers have been left appalled by the removal, calling Shannon B’s request “ridiculous.”

“Shannon, this kind of crap is what makes people hate others,” one person wrote in the petition’s comments.

“Dude, seriously, get a life. It’s a costume,” another replied. “Let kids be kids,” a third customer lamented.

Others expressed that children sometimes aspire to dress like their parents, so the costume’s retail shouldn’t be too “offensive” if shoppers looked at things this way.

Good to see Kmart cashing in on the aspirational child-bride market for Halloween 😐 pic.twitter.com/zejTRUQetX
— Jacqueline Maley (@JacquelineMaley) September 27, 2019



[via News.com.au, images via various sources]