Ontario woman forced to walk topless through airport security in Dominican Republic

globalnews.ca:

A Burlington, Ont., woman says she was forced to walk naked from above the waist through an airport security line in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic earlier this month.

“I was completely humiliated and traumatized,” Natasha Marques told Global News in an exclusive interview.

Marques, age 23, flew from Toronto to Punta Cana on March 1 for a one-week holiday with a friend.

The two women arrived at Punta Cana airport on March 8 and proceeded to the security screening line after dropping off their luggage.

Marques said a woman in the line in front of her was told to remove her sweater by a male security officer at the airport. She did, after raising objections.

Marques said that the other female traveller was wearing a bikini bathing suit top underneath her sweater.

But after Marques placed her items on the conveyor belt, the same officer ordered her in Spanish to remove her athletic hoodie. She says he used his hands to illustrate that the top should come off.

Marques was not wearing anything underneath. She says she told the officer that, repeatedly.

“I said I don’t have anything underneath, I’m naked underneath,” Marques said.

She says she lifted her hoodie part way to reveal bare skin, to prove her point.

The officer, she says, continued to insist.

Marques says she resisted the officer’s demands for up to six minutes as her friend watched what was happening.

“I felt I had no choice, I just had to remove my sweater,” Marques said.

“I honestly thought I was going to be detained or charged — that I was going to be stuck in Dominican Republic for a few days or weeks,” if she did not comply, Marques said.

She says she removed her hoodie, placed it on the conveyor belt, and walked through the metal detector with a hand on each