Sex in the city
23 May 2012 06:36 pm
By Jeewan Thiyagarajah
Sex is not illegal in SL. Soliciting is a crime. Managing sex workers is also a crime. A tragic story reported yesterday was of a 17 year old girl from a remote area of Batticaloa, lodged by a woman in Maradana, who had offered her for non-consensual sex to two men from the Middle East in Hikkaduwa and was being treated for rape.
This is only a few of the stories coming to light. Women are mobile and are searching for jobs. Some are in dire financial situations. When they travel to urban areas some are befriended and used. Girls are being trafficked from the Wanni to Jaffna and to the South. That has extended to girls from the East. Some rural women and girls are trapped in lodges.
Most Karaoke bars have local girls working as hostesses. They finish work after 5.30am. Some girls are commissioned and found serving liquor at private parties without clothes covering their upper body. Another category are picked up for sex by men on different days from restaurants in places like Mount Lavinia and from night clubs located on Duplication Road and in Colombo 1 and 2.
We have an ever increasing number of men in post war SL who are also mobile, restless and looking for outlets. These men and many women frequenting the night clubs consume liquor and with the accompanying music, it does not take much to make the next connection to physical contact. With the increase in inbound tourism a select band of men look for sex with boys. Many though if single are looking for fun with our women and girls during the few days in the country primarily through networks providing women and girls and the pickups are possible at night clubs and Casinos. Sex without condoms attracts higher payments. Pregnancies are prevented surgically and with tablets. Unprotected sex and consequences are hard to erase surgically or by tablets.
The Colombo circle of women wanting liquor and music at night clubs are the subject of leering male counterparts. Liquor and music provides the heady stimulant for violence thereafter. Single women in particular in Night Clubs run the greatest risk, including of being picked up or being blackmailed.
There are tragic outcomes across the spectrum. Poorer rural girls and women are being ravaged emotionally and physically and dumped. Reconstructing lives emotionally and physically become a huge challenge with many unable to seek help or share their stories.
Some night workers do so by choice but do not see the longer term implications now. The more sophisticated who knowingly wonder into vulnerable situations are hard to protect.
Mothers and fathers ,brothers and sisters, partners and the odd husband should begin to think and understand what’s going on by night now. Some of us deeply care for the poorer ones hurt. For the rest, people make conscious choices for which one is judged by the company one keeps. Sadly they are bound to be hurt sooner than later.