On January 12, about 100 women nursed their babies in public in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, to protest the decision by a shopping centre to prohibit a woman from breastfeeding in its main part. The women staged their protest in the food court area of the Lincoln Plaza shopping centre in eastern San Jose.
A week earlier, Patricia Barrantes was asked by a security guard to stop nursing her daughter in public and move to a special lactation room.
After the protest, Barrantes told reporters that the mall’s representatives apologised and thanked the women for supporting her. The representatives said making use of the lactation room at the centre is optional and breastfeeding babies in public was never prohibited. The security officer had made a mistake, they said.