A mother expressed her alarm after discovering an ‘inappropriate’ symbol on children’s underwear she bought from a discount store.
Nicola Pritchard, residing in Staffordshire, UK, has insisted that a discount retailer withdraw what she considers ‘sexually inappropriate’ children’s underwear from sale.
The mother of three had purchased a set of four girls’ knickers for under $4 (£2.50) from Poundland’s Pepco line for her 10-year-old daughter.
Initially, the 40-year-old did not pay much attention to the design until her daughter inquired about the Japanese lettering.
Upon investigating the meaning of the symbol on the underwear, Nicola was shocked by what she discovered.
After finding out that the symbol translates to ‘pussycat’ or ‘cat’ in both Chinese and Japanese, she filed a complaint with Poundland, urging them to remove the ‘inappropriate’ item from their inventory.
In a subsequent statement, the retailer explained that the underwear was a part of a Japanese-themed cat collection, though they ‘understand why’ Nicola was upset given the context.
Nicola recounted, “I had previously bought some [knickers] for my daughter with a different design and she had said how comfortable they were. I thought she would like these ones. They were in a pack of four and you could only see the front pair was gingham.”
“None of them had anything to do with Japanese symbols apart from this random one in the pack,” she added.
When her daughter asked, “What does this mean Mum?” Nicola responded that she didn’t know as she hadn’t noticed it before.
Using Google Translate and Google Lens, she discovered that the symbol was a rough translation for a slang term for cat, like ‘pussy, puss, moggy’.
“If the pants had anything to do with cats, like pictures of cats or something like that [that would be fine] but there’s no correlation as to why this symbol should be on there, especially on children’s pants,” she commented.
“I was absolutely gobsmacked. These [even] come in ages three to four in Poundland,” she noted.
Despite being informed that the retailer would look into the underwear line, Nicola saw them still available in the store several days later.
“It seemed like they weren’t taking this seriously at all,” she said. “The fact that these are on girls’ knickers is baffling. How it was able to get through production, I can’t get my head round how it managed to get through and to sale.”
“It’s got no place on children’s knickers. I think there’s sexual connotations to it. It’s not even the proper name for cat, it’s the slang name,” she emphasized.
“I can’t see any reason why they should be on girls’ knickers. It’s completely inappropriate,” she continued.
“The idea that that’s printed on the front of knickers for children turns my stomach.”
Nicola did acknowledge, “I don’t think they’ve done it intentionally.”
A spokesperson for Poundland commented: “While these are part of a wider Japanese-themed cat range that includes socks and vests, we understand why Nicola questioned one item out of the context of the whole range. It goes without saying we apologise for that, and we appreciate her getting in touch with us.”