Cyprus and the Global Polemics of Sex Trade and Sex Trafficking: Colonial and Postcolonial Connections

Author: Constantinou, Angelo

Abstract: This article problematizes the burgeoning transnational attempts to homogenize the ways in which national authorities deal with prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes. The case of Cyprus is used as a paradigm where local socioeconomic, geopolitical, and historical parameters indicate that they cannot be sidestepped for the purpose of implementing offshore legislations and policies on commercial sex and human trafficking and that often enough draw upon different interests and aim toward different ends. Rather, as is the case of Cyprus, the regulatory approach to prostitution (that exists since the colonial epoch) allows the state to assume an ambivalent stance toward the local sex industry and its negative corollary (sex trafficking) for the purpose of “facilitating” revenue enhancement. As such, neither the abolition nor the legalization of prostitution can effectively deal with the issue in hand. That said, any adamant argument in support of either approach is unquestionably, subject to criticism.

Keywords: Cyprus, human trafficking, prostitutional regulation, colonial, postcolonial