Shoplifting lady in Pori sentenced – take all, pay none – loose your skirt!
@ 2:21 am The first case ever in the history of Finland, a part of a “national costume” was confiscated by the court as a “object used to commit a crime” in a sentence that was handed over in Pori today.
Traditionally, the “object used to commit a crime” has been “senteced to be forfeited the state”. The secretary of the Advisory Board on Romani Affairs notes that the unique decision of the court is the first time ever a Roma woman’s expensive velvet dress was confiscated to the state writes Satakunnan Kansa. The court found that the dress been altered in such a manner by adding hooks and extra pockets to make shoplifting viable as its reasons for confiscating the dress.
According to the police, the modus operandi regarding the redistribution of wealth was that a group of women went into a store, where they started “making a fuss” whilst one went around and collected items ranging from a chainsaw to groceries. The police said they hadn’t tested what the maximum load of such a dress was, but they stated two women had 76 packets of coffee and nine 4-litre canisters of motor oil between them “under the skirt”.
Is it fair in your opinion that someone abuses her cultural heritage in this way?
The Finnish Roma women’s dress is quite astounding, and Finland is apparently the only country in Europe the Roma have a distinct “national costume”. The women’s dress style dates from the 18th century and is padded with three layers totalling 27 meters of black velvet. A girl makes a choise around the age of 16 of she will wear the traditional dress, as it also obliges its wearer to the traditions regarding the dress. Wearing the dress is heavy, not only that it weighs about ten kilos but the general population does have prejudices, so for a traditionally dressing woman finding a job can be very hard, it is as if the person disappears, but the velvet dress labels one all of a sudden with certain characteristics.
