SL women for prostitution in Singapore: racket bared
By Gayan Kumara Weerasingha
Lakbima News – 17th January 2009
The Katunayake airport branch of the Foreign Employment Bureau has revealed a racket of sending under age girls and women for prostitution in Singapore. The racketeers are said to be using forged passports to send under age girls, showing authorities that they are older than they really are. According to Sri Lal Perera, manager of the Foreign Employment Bureau’s branch at the Katunayaka Airport, the officials had stopped and interrogated a girl from Melwaththa, Negombo as she looked younger than the age mentioned in her passport. From interrogations they found out that she was only 17 years old and was going to Singapore for prostitution. The girl had been then sent on to the care of the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) where the racket was revealed. The NCPA arrested a 28 year old man from Naththandiya and a 23 year old man from Devalapola, Ganemulla after investigations. They had sent a few under age girls abroad for prostitution by the time they were arrested.
The girl’s parents had been frequently quarrelling and her education ruined due to family problems. So she had eloped when she was 16. But later, her lover had left her and she came back to her parents. In the meantime her father died and her mother who lived with another man had run into debt. As a result of these problems the girl found employment at a garment factory in Wennappuwa. One day, as she was returning home from work she met a young man in the bus named Chaminda. She asked him to find her a good job and he had offered to give her a job in Singapore. He had also prepared the passport for her. It is at the airport that she was told of the job she was being sent for and she had agreed to it considering the better pay.
While this racket of sending under age girls for prostitution in Singapore was being revealed, a 46 year old woman was also caught as she was going to Singapore for the same job, Perera revealed. The racketeers had made arrangements to send her abroad under the pretext of sending her for a job in a coffee shop.
It was at the airport that she was also told what she was really being sent for and the racketeers had promised her a salary of Rs.750,000. She gave this information when interrogated by Foreign Employment Bureau officers. A 21 year old girl was also apprehended on 7th December as she was going to Singapore for the same profession. She too had agreed to take up the job because of the Rs.750,000 salary.
According to Perera, 10-15 women, going to Singapore for prostitution, are captured every year. As he points out, this organized racket is supported by Sri Lankans living in Singapore as well. He said that married couples are also involved in the racket and that the Bureau has information about wives who sent women from Sri Lanka for their husbands in Singapore to employ in prostitution.
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