Just wanted to get your thoughts/input on an experience I had recently in a hostel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

I (27f) was returning to the hostel around 2am, stone cold sober in case anyone thinks that's relevant. The hostel was in an apartment building and occupied several units in the same hall. As I approached the door, a very drunk and very tall man came stumbling from another unit also owned by the hostel, asking if I wanted to go downtown with him. Trying not to be rude, I smiled and politely said "no, thanks." This repeated a couple more times with him trying to tell me (not asking) to go to a sauna with him. I clearly declined every time.

He came uncomfortably close to me and asked where I was from. I told him I was from Canada and returned the question. He answered, "Belarus. Can I have a kiss?" By now he was directly between me and the door.

I stepped back and sternly told him "no. I'm going to bed now." He grumbled something, tried to grab my arm and I pulled away. Then he slapped my ass and finally stumbled away, still saying gross things over his shoulder. I called a few profanities after him as I went inside.

The next morning I told the front desk about the encounter and asked if they had any men from Belarus staying. I described him as "tall, blonde, wearing a brightly colored shirt and I could identify him from a picture." The woman I spoke to shrugged, told me to keep an eye out and maybe let them know who it was if I saw him around. She was clearly looking for a reason to do nothing and settled on my description not being enough to identify him. This was not a very big hostel, I would be very surprised if they had more than two Belarusians staying at a time and they screen and scan everyone's passport at check-in. They also had visible cameras pointed at the exact spot we were standing, which I pointed out to them, but they just ignored that comment.

A friend later asked how I would have liked them to respond. Ideally, I would have appreciated it if they treated it like a serious noise complaint. They could have either offered to pull the camera footage or showed me photos/scanned passports of guests matching the description to identify him (though I strongly suspect he would be the only one by that description) then either evict him or give him a warning or flag his profile if he booked through a third party. If they really wanted to go above and beyond, they could offer to help me file a police report since I don't speak the language. These are steps I might have taken if someone told me a similar story back when I worked front desk at a hotel. But they did none of that. I was left feeling pretty dismissed and frustrated that women have to just suck it up and deal with this crap.

Have you had any similar situations in hostels and how did you handle it? Do you think hostels should take some responsibility or action in this type of situation or am I expecting too much? Obviously I'm aware they're not babysitters or any sort of authority over the adults who stay there, but I feel like a tiny bit more initiative would have been appreciated.

Tl;dr: another guest slapped my ass while I was returning at 2am. Reported to front desk the next morning, they didn't care.