A man who allegedly exposed himself to and propositioned a New Zealand woman travelling alone has been arrested in Sri Lanka after video of the encounter went viral, local police say. <\/p>\n
Molly was followed and harassed while driving a tuk tuk through the Thambiluvil area on the east of the island on October 25 \u2014 four or five days into her solo road trip.<\/p>\n
“He sped up to pass me, and as he passed me, he waved, and I waved back,” she told 1News.<\/p>\n
The man, who was riding on a scooter, repeatedly overtook her and slowed down, forcing her to pass him multiple times. When she pulled over for a break, he approached from behind.<\/p>\n
“He seemed friendly enough, so I didn’t question his intentions,” she said.<\/p>\n
But the conversation quickly became uncomfortable. Through broken English, she understood him asking where she was staying before mentioning sex.<\/p>\n
“I was like, ‘okay, no, absolutely not’, and I just got ready to drive away.”<\/p>\n
At that point, he exposed himself to her.<\/p>\n
“I wish I had reacted more firmly, but I was just in shock. I could not believe he asked me that question, and after I said no, he still had the audacity to expose himself to me like that,” she said.<\/p>\n
Molly shared video of the incident online, which has since had millions of views, and contacted local police after being encouraged by Sri Lankans.<\/p>\n
Sri Lankan police said the video had been circulating widely on social media in recent days, drawing international criticism and damaging the country’s reputation.<\/p>\n
The Tourism Division, working with Thirukkovil and Pottuvil police, launched an investigation and issued a public appeal to identify the suspect, leading to the arrest of a 25-year-old man on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“At the time of his arrest, the suspect had reportedly altered his appearance and changed his residence in an attempt to evade capture,” a statement read.<\/p>\n
After the incident, Molly met up with friends she had been travelling with and drove in convoy with them for the remainder of her month-long trip.<\/p>\n
However, she said the experience did not change her view of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
“All of the other people were so kind and generous and welcoming, and I never had any other experience like that.<\/p>\n
“Sri Lanka is still a very safe place, and I would still recommend it to solo female travellers.”<\/p>\n
Molly, who was from Christchurch, said she wanted to share her story because sexual harassment was “a harsh reality for women” everywhere \u2014 not just while travelling.<\/p>\n
“Something like this can happen in your hometown. I’ve been sexually harassed in New Zealand as well.”<\/p>\n
She said the response online had included victim-blaming, with some suggesting it was her fault for travelling in a country like Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
“It’s like, you watch that video, how can you think that I’m the problem?”<\/p>\n
Molly said it was sad that people were now questioning whether women should solo-travel.<\/p>\n
“You can’t just expect half the population not to be able to go on holiday by themselves if that’s what they want to do,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a problem about what women can do. It’s a problem that should be about what men are doing, not us.”<\/p>\n
Sri Lankan police said the man was expected to be charged and appear in court in the coming days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who allegedly exposed himself to and propositioned a New Zealand woman travelling alone has been arrested…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2300,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-141680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}