THE HOUSE Legal Affairs Committee has reached a compromise on the age of consent for heterosexuals and homosexuals, which is expected to be put before the plenum tomorrow.
The compromise is to get around demands by Europe to equalise all legislation relating to heterosexuality and homosexuality, which had left the government faced with the possibility of reducing the age of consent for gays from 18 to 16.
However it has now been decided to set the legal age for all categories at 17, which reduces the age of consent for homosexuals but also raises the age of consent for heterosexuals from 16 to 17.
The amendments to the law that will go before parliament tomorrow also outlaw male prostitution and increase the penalty for certain sexual offences from two to three years. There will be no provision for gay marriages, one of the issues which the gay community has been pushing for.
The changes are to ensure that that homosexuals receive equal treatment under the law .
Several Euro MPs warned late last year that they would vote against the island’s accession unless changes were made. Each member country is allowed to set its own age of consent, as long as equality exists for all citizens, homosexual or heterosexual.
In 1993 gay architect Alecos Modinos won a battle at the European Court of Human Rights to force Cyprus to decriminalise homosexuality. This happened in 1998, but it took another two years to have deliberately offensive terms describing homosexual relations as ‘unnatural licentiousness’ removed from the new legislation — and again only under threat from Europe.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
