US travel advisory to SL warns females against sexual attacks

Sunday, June 09, 2013

The US State Department’s latest travel advisory warns that foreign women should exercise vigilance in Sri Lanka, due to an upswing in sexual attacks against female visitors in tourist areas.

Updated on May 6, 2013, it states that travellers, especially women, should consider travelling with other people when possible.
“Western women continue to report incidents of verbal and physical harassment by groups of men,” it warns. “Such harassment can occur anytime or anywhere, but most frequently has taken place in crowded areas such as marketplaces, train stations, buses, public streets and sporting events.”

“The harassment ranges from sexually suggestive or lewd comments to physical advances, and sexual assaults have occurred as well,” it states. “While most victims of sexual assault have been local residents, an upswing in sexual attacks against female visitors in tourist areas in the southern beaches, underlines the fact, that foreign women should exercise vigilance.”

Newspapers and other sources report ongoing criminal activity around the country, including murder and kidnapping, the notice cites. “Most violent crime occurs within the local community,” it observes. “However, reports of violent crime and sexual assaults directed at foreigners have been increasing in recent months.”

It states that police response to assist victims “can vary from a few minutes to hours, even in tourist areas, and particularly in remote areas. In response to this rise in crime, the Sri Lanka government now requires that all foreign tourists provide their passport information to hotel staff when registering at local hotels and guest houses, so that this data can be used by local law enforcement for the monitoring of foreign tourists,” it elaborates.

The notice makes reference to the killing of British Red Cross worker Khuram Shaikh and the assault on his Russian partner in Tangalle in December 2011. “The Sri Lankan justice system can be slower than in the United States and there are a number of outstanding cases of crimes against foreign nationals, including the murder of the British national noted above, which have yet to be prosecuted,” it informs. It also reveals that street hustlers or “touts” are common around hotels, shopping centres and tourist sites.

Thinking of visiting Sri Lanka?Think again.

Ethical tourism

For tourism to be ethical it must not be exploitative, and must ensure that local people get a fair share of the economic benefits. Tourism Concernprovides a list of ethical tour operators to help you ensure your holiday spending goes to help local communities. Experience Travel are the listed provider for Sri Lanka.* We have produced a list of businesses to avoid on grounds of human rights concerns.

Sri Lanka has many family run hotels and local businesses that can provide you with a wonderfully authentic experience, far more personal than that offered by the big resorts. In many places there are alsocommunity projects that provide fair employment to local people. If you want to visit a tea plantation while in the hill country, try to find one that operates to Fairtrade standards, and ask about the working conditions for tea pickers.

Some packages even offer community projects and off-the-beaten-track homestays as part of their tours. But do be aware that signing up to a package means that the package operator may be making some of your ethical decisions for you.

The most important thing is to make an informed choice. By asking your travel agent or tour operator for more information about who exactly is providing (and profiting from) your flights, accommodation, activities, and excursions, you can help local people to benefit from your visit, and avoid benefiting human rights abusers.

Get informed

• Make sure you're aware of the current situation and what the risks for tourists are.
• Consider following Groundviews, Sri Lanka's international award-winning citizen journalism site.
• To better understand what happened at the end of the conflict we recommend The Cage by Gordon Weiss, and Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War by Frances Harrison.
• For more information about how to be an ethical tourist we recommendThe Good Tourist by Lucy Popescu.

Make a difference

Why not make your holiday an activist's one? Print out material which may be hard for Sri Lankans to get hold of and leave them in Sri Lanka: on a bus, on a train, or any public place. Purchasing relevant books and DVDsthrough our store will directly help our campaign, but there are also many free resources available:

• There Are Realistic Alternatives or 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action byGene Sharp (which provide short introductions to nonviolent resistance)
• The summary pages of the United Nations Panel of Experts' Report on Accountability in Sri Lanka
• Human Rights Watch's 2012 Sri Lanka Report,
• Amnesty International's When Will They Get Justice
• Freedom from Torture's Out of the Silence
• Synopses of Channel 4's Sri Lanka's Killing Fields

Or just talk to people about their situation. Ask them how they feel about the war, about the President, about the media, or about corruption.

This has to be done with a certain degree of care: your role here is not to judge or to educate, but to listen and share information - and so combat the Sri Lankan Government's isolation of its people. You need to be conscious of the safety and security of local people. You need - for example - to be careful about where you choose to ask people sensitive questions - people might get into trouble if soldiers or policemen overhear them badmouthing the Government.

There should be little risk to you - the Government of Sri Lanka does not want to risk its carefully maintained façade of respectability by causing problems for foreigners. 

Finally, some organisations do offer homestays with human rights defenders, which can allow you a way to see what the country is really like, as well as helping them. It's not for everyone, but if you are interested get in touch with us.

* Experience Travel are listed twice on this site. Here we talk about the fact they are listed as Tourism Concern’s Ethical tour operators group, and here we talk about how they use businesses with which we have concern. This is because both these things are true. On the one hand Experience Travel have worked hard to provide ethical and sustainable holidays, and Tourism Concern’s award recognises that, on the other hand some of their packages use Sri Lankan Airlines – who are linked with perpetrators of the worst kind of war crimes.