A 55-YEAR-OLD Nicosia cabaret owner and two of his waiters were yesterday remanded in five-day custody in connection with prostitution charges, police said.
The suspects were arrested during the early hours of Sunday on pimping, prostitution, and sexual exploitation charges. Police had received a tip-off the cabaret, located in old Nicosia, was prostituting its staff.
A sting operation was put into motion involving a police associate making a deal with the cabaret owner and waiters to have sex with a 20-year-old Ukrainian woman when the premises closed for the night. At around 3am the police associate paid €190 to the cabaret and artiste and a further €60 for his drinks. He then left with the female employee.
Not long afterwards police raided the premises and found the money on both the cabaret owner and the two waiters. The money had been photographed before the operation, leaving no doubt that it was the same money that their associate had used.
A raid was also carried out at a Nicosia hotel where they found the Ukrainian woman and the police associate. Used condoms were taken in as evidence, reports said.
The couple had also paid €40 for use of the room.
It is thought the young woman has been co-operating with the authorities and will be used as a witness. From the €250 the cabaret owner managed to secure from the entire transaction, only €50 went to the woman.
During the raid, police noted that of 10 women who were listed as working at the premises, only five were present. The owner told investigators that the women had already gotten off work.
Nevertheless, police believe that the women had been prostituted and called them in for questioning to determine their exact whereabouts at the time.
How to abolish the flash trade?
THE LATEST arrest comes in the wake of an Interior Ministry announcement that ‘artiste’ visas will be abolished at the end of next month. It is hoped that the move will help clampdown on the island’s horrendous human trafficking record.
But an Interior Ministry official could not yesterday specify how exactly doing away with the old visas would curb trafficking.
“It is one of the aims of dealing with the problem of sex trafficking. There will be a number of other measures also,” the official said.
The civil servant was very vague about what those measures would be stating only that the issue would be discussed by a committee made up of representatives from the ministries of Justice, Labour and Interior.
“The visa procedure will now be same for all immigrants and artistes will be part of the workforce like all foreign workers, putting an end to their discrimination.”
But how authorities plan to standardise the visa procedure is not entirely clear.
Unlike job vacancies in other sectors that are open to third-country nationals, entertainment/artiste vacancies have not so far been listed by the Labour Department.
This effectively means that up until now the estimated 2,000 foreign women employed annually as ‘artistes’ have not been legally accounted for as ‘labourers’.
It also means that these jobs are not available to foreign members of Cypriot families or Cypriots seeking employment.
In fact according to a 2005 ministerial decision, members of Cypriot families are banned from working in cabarets.
In its executive summary of the 2007 research report ‘Mapping the Realities of Trafficking in Women for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation in Cyprus’, the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) pointed out that such decision generated a tolerance “for the continuation of ‘importing’ women as ‘entertainers’ to work predominantly in cabarets”.
So is the idea to shut down the cabarets?
According to the Interior Ministry official that was an impossible notion.
“Cabarets cannot close,” she said.
Asked whether cabaret owners would still be allowed to employ ‘artistes’, she said that was not a question that could be answered at this point.
“It is something we will look at… It’s still early days. The committee has to meet first and then specific proposals will be discussed,” she said.
SIDEBAR:
Information taken from MIGS’ publication on ‘Mapping the Realities of Trafficking in Women for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation in Cyprus’.
Cyprus has been associated with trafficking many times in the past both as a transit country and a country of destination for victims of trafficking, particularly from Eastern and Central Europe for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Trafficked women in Cyprus are victimised in the process of migration for multiple reasons associated with gender. These women are forced into prostitution by traffickers who fraudulently recruit victims for work as “entertainment” dancers in cabarets and nightclubs on short-term “artistes” or “entertainment” visas. Most arrive in Cyprus through employment agencies.
Most of these women are unable to move freely, are forced to work over and above their working hours, live in desperate conditions, isolated and under strict surveillance. A significant number of trafficked women are misled into believing that they are expected to work as waitresses, or barmaids. Instead, most of these women are forced, through the use of threats and/or violence, into prostitution.
Traffickers and/or many “employers” take possession of their personal documents (visa permit, passports). These women are at great risk of physical and psychological harm as they seem to be modern-day slaves, with their basic human rights violated.
