Chinese Woman Fined Rs. 10 For Loitering
A Kollupitiya casino at night.
Around Kollupitiya, you can see Chinese women (who I think are prostitutes) walking between the casinos and karaoke joints or whatever. Recently one was picked up for ‘loitering’, but only fined Rs. 10 because the laws are so old. It’s kinda funny.
Another funny law is that women cannot legally buy alcohol in Sri Lanka. I know women who’ve been turned down trying to buy booze but, again, this is vestigial law that’s absurd and rarely applied. I also tried to get a library card in Mount Lavinia and they asked me some strange questions, like whether I could prove that I paid at least Rs. 20 in rent, with a ton of documents and reference to back this up (I don’t think I’m remembering the number exactly).
Anyways, this suspected prostitute was picked up under the colonial era Vagrants Ordinance, which is pretty funny to read. There are separate sections for people “Who are deemed to be rogues and vagabonds” and those “who are deemed to be incorrigible rogues.”
It’s pretty funny. But on a serious note, prostitution is happening. It should be legal. A policy of haphazard prosecution just empowers pimps, corrupts cops and is about as far behind the times as a 10 Rupee fine.
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
I met an old-timer who said they used to drop acid and sleep atop Sigiriya, but the place has taken on a more commercial and quasi-spiritual role now. It was built by a king as a sort of retreat and used as a monastery. Now it’s a prime tourist and cultural destination. Hence it’s a bit odd to see a Japanese beer commercial shot up there. There’s a bunch of people eating, um, deep fried cream filled coconuts and then drinking some bracing beer. I hear the whole thing cost Rs. 25,000 (I’m presuming they used stock images).
What about a place like the Netherlands (trafficking from ‘poorer’ countries by pimps has increase significantly over time) . It doesn’t seem to work quite like, say, the war on drugs
….sometimes, the legal institutions may temper situations…there is of course freedom of choice but that is less welfare improving than preventing exploitation.
Sri Lanka seriously needs to review and update its laws. -__- I mean, loitering? Seriously. Himal would be millions of rupees in debt right now. :P
I can see that descriptions like “incorrigible” and “vagabond” would immediately come to mind of any cop who happened to see a Himal loitering about.
totally ;)
Ha ha ha, good one Chavie.