Two little girls pretend to be lost in a busy shopping centre. So how many people stop to help? One. How many ignore their plight... 616!
One little girl was clutching her favourite toy while her younger sister was sucking her thumb – and both looked utterly lost and forlorn.
The girls stood for an hour on a Saturday morning in a busy shopping arcade looking for 'help', as part of a social experiment for television.
The girls stood for an hour on a Saturday morning in a busy shopping arcade looking for 'help', as part of a social experiment for television.
Hidden cameras recorded Uma, seven, and Maya, five, who took it in turns to look lost.
Astonishingly, over the whole hour only one person, a grandmother, took a moment to find out if there was a problem. All of the 616 other passers-by completely ignored the girls.
Heartbreakingly for the mother of the sisters – who was watching from a hiding place nearby – passing couples even split apart to walk around either side of the 'lost' girls and people wheeling suitcases took evasive action to avoid Maya and Uma, not thinking to check if they needed help.
Yesterday the NSPCC said the results of the experiment were shocking and called on members of the public to step in if they saw a youngster looking lost.
Yesterday the NSPCC said the results of the experiment were shocking and called on members of the public to step in if they saw a youngster looking lost.
Maya and Uma agreed to help and were brought along by their mother Reshma Rumsey, who watched from behind a nearby pillar with a presenter. Uma went first, standing alone in the middle of the concourse, holding her pink doll and putting on a good act of being scared and vulnerable.
Under the gaze of the hidden cameras 25 yards away, dozens of shoppers and travellers bustled past. A mother with a pram manoeuvred around her, then a group of women pulling suitcases turned a blind eye.
After 20 minutes, not a single person had stopped to ask the seven-year-old if she was all right, even though some of them had plainly seen her.
Next, it was her five-year-old sister's turn. Maya stood sucking her thumb, and then tried kneeling down, gazing up forlornly at passing shoppers, but she too seemed to be invisible.
This is so sad! because it's a poor little girl, we are not talking about an old man or something like that, it's a child!!! Everybody ignored her and she maybe needed atention. Have you ever been in a fashion mall with people everywere and you come across with a child crying without its parents? People is too selfish sometimes. I remember that when I was a child in a fashion mall because I was too excitet about see a lot of clothes and I lost my mom, luckily a girl took me to a shoper and then she found my mom. But I hopa that this new can open peoples eyes.
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