Illegal Everywhere, Honest Nowhere

Questioning the Answers

By Faraz Shauketaly

Prostitution occupies a curious space in South and Southeast Asia: illegal by statute, ubiquitous by practice, and managed by states through a blend of denial, discretion, and selective enforcement. Sri Lanka and Thailand—often spoken of in the same breath for very different reasons—offer a study in contrasts that ultimately lead to the same uncomfortable conclusion: illegality does not eliminate sex work; it merely decides who pays the price.

In Sri Lanka, prostitution is illegal under colonial-era statutes such as the Vagrants Ordinance and the Brothels Ordinance. The law is unambiguous. Selling sex is a crime. Soliciting is a crime. Facilitating is a crime. There is no legal recognition of sex work as labour, no distinction between coercion and consent, and no meaningful framework for protection.

Thailand’s legal position is no different—on paper. Under the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act of 1996, prostitution is illegal. Buying and selling sex are criminal offences. Organising and profiting from it attracts heavier penalties. The law frames sex workers not as criminals but as persons in need of rehabilitation.

And yet, the lived realities in the two countries diverge sharply.

In Sri Lanka, enforcement is visible and punitive. Police action tends to target the most vulnerable: street-based sex workers, low-income women, and transgender persons. Arrests, court appearances, fines, and public exposure are routine. The law operates not as a protective instrument but as a mechanism of social control. Discretion exists, but it flows upward. High-end, discreet prostitution survives quietly, insulated by class and influence, while the poor absorb the consequences.

Thailand, by contrast, practices a managed contradiction. Entire red-light districts operate openly. Bars, clubs, and massage parlours form part of the tourism economy. Enforcement is selective and strategic—periodic crackdowns for optics, migration control, or political signalling, rather than sustained suppression. The state maintains the legal fiction of prohibition while informally regulating the industry through licensing, zoning, and police tolerance.

Both systems are hypocritical. But they are hypocritical in different ways.

Sri Lanka’s hypocrisy is moralistic. It insists prostitution is marginal, aberrant, and socially corrosive—while doing little to dismantle the conditions that sustain it. The law pretends the industry does not exist, except when it is time to punish those least able to resist the weight of the state. This posture allows the political class to perform virtue without assuming responsibility.

Thailand’s hypocrisy is pragmatic. It denies legality while integrating prostitution into economic reality. Illegality becomes a lever of control rather than an instrument of eradication. The state benefits from revenue, tourism, and stability, while preserving the ability to intervene, discipline, or disown the industry when convenient.

In both countries, the beneficiaries of illegality are not sex workers.

Illegality protects intermediaries. It empowers rent- seeking. It grants police wide discretion—often unreviewable. It keeps sex workers legally vulnerable, unable to report abuse, negotiate safety, or access labour protections without risking arrest. What differs is intensity: Sri Lanka punishes more openly; Thailand tolerates more cynically.

The human cost is evident.

In Sri Lanka, sex workers face routine criminalisation, social stigma, limited access to healthcare, and near- total exclusion from legal protection. In Thailand, while NGO outreach and health access are comparatively better, legal vulnerability remains absolute, particularly for migrants and trafficking victims. Neither system delivers justice. But Sri Lanka’s model is more overtly punitive, and therefore more damaging.

The deeper question is not whether prostitution should be morally approved or condemned. That debate has exhausted itself. The question is whether the law, as it stands, achieves any of the outcomes it claims to pursue.

It does not.

Illegality has not eliminated prostitution in Sri Lanka or Thailand. It has merely determined who is criminalised and who is insulated. It has replaced regulation with discretion, accountability with denial, and protection with pretense.

Thailand, for all its duplicity, at least recognises the reality it governs. Sri Lanka insists on pretending that reality does not exist—while quietly allowing it to persist.

That pretence carries consequences. A state that refuses to acknowledge an activity cannot regulate it. A state that criminalises vulnerability cannot protect rights. And a state that relies on selective enforcement forfeits moral authority when it speaks of law and order.

If Sri Lanka wishes to retain prohibition, it must at least be honest about its effects. If it wishes to protect the vulnerable, it must confront the fact that moral posturing has never been a substitute for policy.

Illegality, in both countries, has proved durable. Honesty has not.

And until that changes, the law will continue to punish those with the least power—while reassuring those with the most that nothing need fundamentally change.