A Cypriot court has sentenced a man who engaged in sexual activities with a victim of human trafficking to prison.
“This is the first time that a ‘client’ has been convicted by a Cypriot court,” the state prosecution service said.
“The convicted person was sentenced today to concurrent prison sentences of 2.5 years and three years since he was also found guilty and sentenced for the crime of rape.”
The court presented evidence indicating that the trafficked woman was a minor when her harrowing experience commenced.
The person responsible for trafficking her also faced trial. The Nicosia Criminal Court subsequently sentenced him to concurrent terms of five and six years in prison.
The convicted trafficker faced charges for trafficking the victim both as a minor and an adult. This involved sexual exploitation, financial violence, withholding personal documents, pimping, threatening violence, and common assault.
The prosecution service emphasized that this marked the first conviction in a Cypriot court for “trafficking a minor with the purpose of sexual exploitation.”
A third defendant involved in the case received a four-month prison sentence for the crime of common assault.
Although the exact age and nationality of the victim at the start of her exploitation remained undisclosed, it became evident that her ordeal commenced during her underage years.
“The woman’s trafficker deprived her of the necessary means of living, pushing her towards prostitution.”
He was convicted of rape as the woman stated she was forced into unprotected intercourse with him.
“While the trafficking victim initially provided consensual sex services, in the process, these services ended up being non-consensual since it was clear from the complainant that she did not consent to unprotected vaginal intercourse,” the prosecution service said.
“Human trafficking in Cyprus surpasses all other EU countries”
According to a 2020 European Commission report, Cyprus had the highest number of identified or presumed victims of human trafficking.
This is relative to its population, with 168 victims per million people, surpassing all other EU countries.
The US State Department’s report on human trafficking in the previous year exposed that trafficker operating in Cyprus subject women from Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa to sex trafficking.
The report also noted that Cypriot authorities convicted seven traffickers in the previous year.
Two for sex trafficking and five for labor trafficking. This represents a decrease compared to the 10 traffickers convicted in 2021.
Notably, during the period of 2018 to 2020, there were no successful convictions of alleged human traffickers on the island.