In the four previous articles of the column on the issue of prostitution and sex trafficking with female victims around the world, in Europe and in Cyprus, the dominant role of the demand for paid sex by male clients who maintain and perpetuate the porn market was highlighted. And who of course – together with the sex traffickers and pimps – treat female sexuality as a commodity that they can sell and buy to serve their own needs and interests.
As far as Cyprus is concerned, the perception of the male client who has the… human right to buy sex has been expressed from time to time in public statements by men with political and social displacement who supported the legalisation of prostitution on the island. A well-known lawyer wrote in an article in a daily newspaper about the need to recognise prostitution as a “legal economic activity,” arbitrarily considering the prostitution of the prostituted woman as her free choice.
Essentially, the author treats this supposedly free woman who sells her body because she likes it, not as a human being who can feel pain, fear and misery, but as a soulless number in an economic and legal statistic. There is no mention in the article about the mental and emotional state of the prostituted woman, nor, of course, about the socio-economic conditions that lead her to prostitution.
In his article, this lawyer refers to the public statement of a former MP who referred to prostituted women by speaking of “women who offer sexual companionship” and calling for the legalisation of prostitution in Cyprus. The MP received a direct response to that public debate from the Commissioner for Gender Equality, Josie Christodoulou, then an official of the Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies (MIGS), who was present. “I am particularly saddened,” said Ms. Christodoulou, “because some people want to romanticise a form of violence against women. We believe that the clients of prostitution should be criminalised. When a male-client buys services from a woman in prostitution, he is not in an equal position with the woman. The person who buys the services is always in a position of power and can use, exploit or even rape these women at any time.”
In any case, the two aforementioned advocates of prostitution probably didn’t realise that we are in the 21st century, that women have gained their freedom and independence through education and employment, and that real men don’t buy and sell women.
