Mum speaks out over metro racism against daughter, 7
Mum speaks out over metro racism against daughter, 7
A RACIST verbal attack on a little girl and her mother on the Madrid metro was met with a flood of outrage by fellow passengers after their assailant reportedly told them they had 'no right' to be in Spain.
Luz Matamoros, originally from Nicaragua, was with her daughter, who is nearly seven and was born in Spain, when a female passenger blocked the child's seat as she was about to sit in it.
“You've no right to sit there,” she told the little girl.
“We had just got on the metro and my daughter was really tired, so a woman who was getting off the train offered her seat to her,” explains Luz.
“Just as my little girl sat down, another woman tried to stop her.
“She said, 'you lot come over here to sponge off our hard work'.
“I didn't understand any of it, and my daughter became really frightened.”
At this point, other passengers flew to the pair's defence.
Luz says she wanted to report the incident but 'has not been able to'.
“I need to get the CCTV footage from the metro company, because I cannot let this pass. My daughter has been saying she doesn't want to go on the metro any more, because she's scared.”
Luz says her little girl's face registered such terror that they ended up getting off the train several stops early and walking.
“My daughter has slightly darker skin than I do, which is what this woman noticed as soon as we got on the train.
“It was very unpleasant, but luckily, there were people who came out in our defence,” Luz recalls.
She says she has never gone through any incident of this type in all her time living in Spain.
