Ministry taking steps to stop sex slavery in North Cyprus
EXPERTS at the Interior Ministry and its special commission on nightclubs have begun work on new legislation to stop sex slavery in North Cyprus — and may move to legalise prosititution, Cyprus Today can reveal.
This newspaper understands there is consensus within the commission to draw up a law providing for legal prostitution in order to prevent a tacitly-allowed sex trade centred on the country’s pubs and nightclubs going underground.
The move follows ongoing calls on TRNC authorities
to tackle the sector, which currently has 35 operative nightclubs and three pubs, employing up to 400 “hostesses”.
While prostitution and living off the proceeds of vice are illegal, the pubs and clubs are widely seen as fronts for the sex trade and have been repeatedly cited as areas of concern for trafficking of women and human rights abuses in local and international reports.
Interior Ministry Ayşegül Baybars Kadri and Labour and Social Security Minister Zeki Çeler last week launched inspections of all venues — the first such countrywide crackdown in five years — vowing to put an end to “illegalities” and “human rights abuses” following the death of a Belarusian nightclub “hostess” and the closure of four unlicensed nightclubs by the capital’s municipality.
The commission met on Wednesday to review the findings of inspection teams from Interior, Labour and Social Security and Health ministries, police, district officers and local authorities. Nesil Bayraktar, a member of the commission from the Basic Health Services Department and a member of the Infectious Diseases Working Group at Lefkoşa State Hospital, told Cyprus Today the checks had exposed problems in areas such as hygiene, food safety, business and work permits, work safety and the condition of staff accommodation. “No illegal act of prostitution has been identified,” she said, but pointed to a “strategic mistake”, in that the venues had been alerted to the checks by a public announcement last week.
Wednesday’s meeting — ahead of inspections in the Girne area — agreed action against a number of nightclubs, including warning four over their illuminated signs or ordering their removal.
KINGS nightclub, one of four in the capital shut by Lefkoşa Turkish Municipality, is seeking a court injunction against the closure. The case has been adjourned until Wednesday.