Kmart Pulls Child Bride Halloween Costume After Petition

It's Halloween again, and your social media feeds are probably already overflowing with the costume reveals by all the friends, couples and celebrities you follow. However, you can thank your lucky stars that you won't be seeing one costume coming across your feed, as it would have surely creeped you out worse than any ghost or maniac killer could. That's because somone thought it was a good idea to make a bride's dress made for a child - and Kmart thought it was a good idea to sell it. Naturally, those gross errors in judgement led to some major backlash, and the "Child Bride" costume has now been pulled from shelves.

The incident occurred over in Australia, where the "Bride Costume" meant for children was spotted on sale. A mother who is referred to as "Shannon B" saw the costume and thought it was aborherrent, which led her to start a petition for its removal. Here's what the petition said (via The Sun UK):

"A child bride costume currently exists on Kmart shelves in hildren's sizes. Tell Kmart this is beoyond inappropriate and offensive and that they have a social responsibility to pull this item off their shelves immediately. Please help me get this message to Kmart by signing this petition.

Each year, 12 million children (girls as young as 6 years old — the same size as this 'costume') are sold or married off by their family without their consent.

That's one million child marriages per month!"

The petition only got 124 signatures at first (it's since blown over 500), but it was enough. The reaction to widespread knowledge of this costume's existence quickly forced Kmart into the position of pulling the Child Bride costume and issuing the following apology to consumers via spokesperson:

"Kmart Australia regrets the decision to range the bride costume. It was not intended to cause offence and we sincerely apologise. We have made the decision to withdraw this product."

It's clear why so many adults are upset over this costume, as child brides are a dark and unfortunate part of various cultures in the world - and sexual abuse of minors, in general, is getting revealed to be much more prevelant than anyone may have realized (see: Jeffrey Epstein's island). This costume triggers all kinds of horrible associations in a lot of people - and yet, others see it as no big deal, at all. In fact, Shannon B's petition got a fair amount of backlash, as well:

"It's just a costume for goodness sake," one person wrote. "My daughter has asked multiple times for a 'dress like mummy had. It is a dress up nothing more … you're ruining it for everyone. Get over yourself."

Clearly different people feel different ways, in this case, but for now, it seems Kmart doesn't see the costume as vaulable enough to whether the storm of selling it. Oh well, if you really want one, there's always Ebay...

Not surprisingly, a counter-petition to "Let Kids Be Kids" and bring the child bride costume back has been launched, headed up by a woman named Sally Lord:

"By taking this off the shelves you have taken away the dream (for) children like my own who wish to dress up as a bride or wear it ... or hack it for a Halloween," Lord said.

Halloween takes place on Thursday, and then we can forget this whole costume business for another year.