NICOSIA, Cyprus – North Cyprus has registered its first ever conviction for human trafficking and ordered the offender jailed, a lawyer from a rights group instructed AFP on Wednesday.
The case concerned a Nigerian girl in her 20s dropped at the territory as a scholar with guarantees of “education and work”, Fezile Osum from the north’s Human Rights Platform mentioned.
Cyprus has been cut up since 1974, after Turkey invaded in response to a Greek-sponsored coup. The self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is just acknowledged by Ankara.
The sufferer “was forced into prostitution” by one other Nigerian girl who instructed her she was indebted to her as a result of she had “arranged her visa and university”, Osum mentioned.
She was manipulated with a “voodoo ritual” and “was very scared that she would be cursed” after disobeying the girl, mentioned Osum, including that the platform offered authorized help to the sufferer.
The trafficker was sentenced to 4 years in jail, Osum mentioned.
The north first criminalized human trafficking in 2020 however no convictions had but been recorded, mentioned Osum, whose group runs a hotline for victims.
The rights group obtained a replica of the courtroom judgement on Monday after the choice was handed down on December 13 however not made public, Osum mentioned.
The US State Department doesn’t formally rank the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report.
It says the territory could be in Tier 3 with the worst offenders together with Afghanistan and North Korea if it did.
The Human Rights Platform has beforehand warned that traffickers within the north have been abusing scholar visa laws.
Osum mentioned the platform assisted 23 Nigerian ladies intercourse trafficking victims in 2022, all of whom have been introduced into the north as college students. — Agence France-Presse
