U.S. AMBASSADOR Michael Klosson has personally interceded on a number of occasions to rescue foreign women from the clutches of human traffickers in the north, according to a newspaper report yesterday.
Politis ran a story claiming that a few months ago the ambassador helped save a Moldavian girl from a prostitution ring operating in the occupied part of Nicosia.
The girl was reportedly being sexually exploited by a cabaret owner in the north. Her parents were alerted to her plight when she began calling them from mobile phones.
Sensing something was amiss, the parents appealed to the Moldavian branch of the La Strada humanitarian organisation. The organisation then turned to its counterparts in Greece and Cyprus, and eventually got in contact with Father Savvas Michaelides, who heads the shelter for sexually exploited women in Limassol.
Michaelides, known for helping many foreign women leave the prostitution business, then began making enquiries on both sides of the island. He finally located the whereabouts of the girl, at a cabaret in occupied Nicosia.
According to reports, the girl was in very bad shape when she was found; despite being a virgin, she had been forced to engage in sexual activities with customers.
Armed with his knowledge, Father Michaelides informed the US Embassy. According to Politis, Klosson took a personal interest in the matter. He reportedly set up a meeting with Turkish Cypriot ‘Foreign Minister’ Serdar Denktash, after which the girl was sent back home to Moldavia.
Following this incident, Klosson followed up with a visit to the shelter in Limassol, where he met with staff and girls housed there.
The paper’s sources say that the ambassador took similar action in another case involving a foreign girl, again in the north.
Last year, the US government placed Cyprus in the Tier 2 category of countries where human trafficking was widespread. Despite acknowledging the problem, officials say the situation has been blown out of proportion.
Last week Justice Minister Doros Theodorou and female deputies had a shouting match during the course of a parliamentary committee, after the minister said Cyprus was being blacklisted for prostitution because of Greek Cypriots’ stance in last year’s referendum.
