Abstract
This article problematizes the common assertion that policies purported to counter prostitution and prostitution-related human trafficking effectively reduce such crime. The paradigm of Cyprus is employed for illustrating that legal action against prostitution (and sex trafficking), intended to reduce the opportunities for purchasing sex on the island, has given rise to the displacement of crime. To affirm this, police intelligence (n = 1103) gathered over the course of 11 years is analysed. If anything, the findings presented here complement the (small) corpus of quantitative studies that address the effectiveness of anti-trafficking policies.
Introduction
The regulation of prostitution is not a novelty but a long-established endeavour, which has made its presence known since the embryonic collective attempts to curb venereal diseases, and later to frame trafficking in humans (or the white flesh trade as it was then termed), at the beginning of the 20th century. Interestingly, policies on the matter have traditionally been divided into one main binary, namely abolition and toleration of prostitution. Along the way, and especially in the course of the last two decades, the topic of prostitution (as an antecedent of human trafficking for sexual purposes) has been revisited by theoreticians, technocrats, and practitioners, for purportedly ‘sharpening’ its definition, ‘enhancing’ its delineation, and ‘highlighting’ its causation and effect. Yet debates over the effects of prostitution – collective and individual – have been particularly heated, for these debates range from seeing prostitution as deleterious to the societies that host it and to the individuals who engage in it (Barry, 1979; Dworkin, 1981; Jeffreys, 1997; MacKinnon and Dworkin, 1997), to seeing it as emancipating and liberating both to populations who elect to practise it and to the societies that embrace it (Chapkis, 1997; Doezema, 2005; McLeod, 1982; Sullivan, 1997).
As a result, to date, a number of legal remedies for prostitution (legalization, prohibition, regulation, and decriminalization) have seen the light. Similarly, although sex trafficking is more or less linked to prostituted acts – albeit this connection is not always clearly acknowledged in legal instruments (Munro, 2005: 96) – a series of legal frameworks have been established for directing national authorities towards ‘better’ curbing prostitution-related human trafficking. Such frameworks consist of particular transnational legislations, 1 whose provisions, in part, are closely based on the sexual acts of trafficked persons. In other words, these frameworks are linked to whether or not a sexual act that is performed by a trafficked individual is induced by any form of coercion (including the vulnerable position of the recipient) or is merely the outcome of a rational, volitional, unmediated, and consented autonomic decision (in which case it does not qualify as sex trafficking).
That said, the concepts of sexual exploitation and prostitution become profoundly relevant in conceptualizing sex trafficking. This being the case, within the context of this study, sexual exploitation is considered to be any paid sexual act that is made possible after the mediation, control, or facilitation of a third party. Prostitution, in contrast, is regarded as rational, individual, and unmediated paid sex between two consenting (adult) parties. In this vein, I intend not to get entangled with conceptual polemics linked to the sex work/prostitution dichotomy (Doezema and Kempadoo, 1998; O’Connell Davidson, 2003), but to empirically illustrate that the outcomes of criminal justice policies (regardless of their point of reference) that aim at combating human trafficking and illegal prostitution not only do not live up to their standards but, more importantly, do not constitute a remedy to the problem.
More to the point, the actual capacity and power of legal measures against prostitution and trafficking to fulfil their purpose (to deal effectively with prostitution and sex trafficking), aside from a limited number of studies that have sought to estimate the effectiveness of such policies (Cho et al., 2013; Jakobsson and Kotsadam, 2013; Kovary and Pruyt, 2012; Sarkany, 2012), have not undergone rigorous empirical analysis, much less criminological examination. Nonetheless, the assertion of these few recent studies, more or less, to some extent underscores a positive relationship between the legalization of prostitution and human trafficking. Yet these studies have not accounted for the crime displacement effect – a basic corollary of crime prevention policies.
This article applies criminological theory and utilizes statistical tools to illustrate that the abolition of the artiste visa policy, which was implemented in Cyprus in 2009 (and drew on anti-human trafficking/prostitution abolitionist ideology), while originally aiming at curtailing prostitution and sex trafficking, actually caused the displacement of prostitution-related crimes. The article attempts first to delineate the policy in question and link it to criminological theory. It then explicates the methodology used for collecting the data. Furthermore, it describes the findings and subsequently explores the broader context within which these findings could fit.
The enforcement of law on prostitution control
In relation to how prostitution is locally politicized, state administrations appear to adopt a scale of policies whose context falls under four taxonomies: regulation, decriminalization, legalization, and prohibition (Matthews, 2008: 95), usually reflecting either, or both, liberal and conservative domestic attitudes on sex. As a result, national discourses today oscillate between policies that focus on sex workers’ protection, apathy and neutrality, or the suppression of demand for paid sex. For instance, in Australia and New Zealand, prostitution is decriminalized (i.e., devoid of any laws or regulations), whereas in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland any prostituted acts are completely prohibited. In the Netherlands and Germany, by contrast, commercial sex is legalized and sex enterprises abide by legal stipulations. In Cyprus, as in England, prostitution is to some extent regulated: nuisances ensuing from prostituted spaces, 2 procurement, 3 public soliciting for the purposes of prostitution, 4 and all sorts of related commercial undertakings are penalized, 5 rendering only individual and volitional prostitution not illegal. However, and as is the case in Cyprus, the evolving regulationist approach is ambivalent because it neither penalizes nor legalizes prostitution per se, thus giving rise to dubious functions that often exploit and trade foreign women.
In addition, the authorities in Cyprus, for better targeting the crime of human trafficking and harmonizing local legislation with EU law, in 2007 6 and subsequently in 2014 7 introduced two local statutory laws on human trafficking, which closely resembled the provisions of the corresponding EU anti-trafficking law. Yet the judiciary (and hence the prosecution services) was reluctant to assimilate anti-trafficking law (mainly the 2007 Law) and, as most sex trafficking cases involved prostitution-related offences, they resorted to the local penal code for putting such cases on trial (Constantinou, 2013a). Consequently, the crime of sex trafficking (the ways and conduits by which it was conducted) remained intact, and it was only in 2009, when the abolition of the artiste visas policy came into effect, that the crime underwent major changes.
Nonetheless, to better understand the dynamics within which the policy under discussion came into being, the political economy of sex in Cyprus is briefly delineated in what follows.
The political economy of sex
Although male demand for female commercial sex appears all too often in the feminist lexicon as the main trigger for female sexual exploitation and trafficking, other forces such as global capitalism (and the political economy of sex) are no less important. In the case of Cyprus, the entire economy – and, hence, national financial viability – is based on services, and tourism constitutes a major part of them. As long as global capitalism perpetuates national economic antagonism, revenue enhancement sources such as sex industries, being by-products of tourism, find their way into the local markets. Consequently, the Cypriot economy, like many other service-based economies, in its attempt to survive economic globalization allowed (prior to 2009) the operation of sexual enterprises. After all, globalization creates unprecedented socioeconomic imbalances between nations, rendering fragile economies unstable (Hopper, 2006). This – coupled with Cyprus’s recent experience of political instability and armed conflict that together fractured the local economy – brought the local suffering involved in achieving economic prosperity centre stage.
Factors such as the consumption of commercial sex by local, tourist, and military men, as well as broader economic and geopolitical issues, kept the sex trade alive in Cyprus and ultimately promoted and sustained domestic commercial sex (Constantinou, 2012). Generally speaking, as a matter of principle, structural elements perpetuate the pathways by which ‘necessities’ are created for deprived individuals to migrate and capitalize on their bodies, and ‘opportunities’ arise for affluent nations to profit from the labour produced by such mobilized bodies (Agathangelou, 2004; Altman, 2001; Anderson and O’Connell Davidson, 2002; Munro, 2008). Alongside this principle, the government of Cyprus undertook specific action towards (un)regulating the sex industry so as to make possible the sexual commodification of foreign women, and, by so doing, to set up an unspoken symbiosis between prostitution and the sexual demand of local males, tourists, and foreign military personnel (Constantinou, 2012). This very fact gave additional momentum to local revenue enhancement.
However, the facilitation of the sex industry in Cyprus was roundly criticized by both local and international sources, which castigated the authorities in Cyprus for purposely exhibiting inertia with respect to confronting commercial sex and thus dealing effectively with sex trafficking. This led to an agonising dilemma for the local authorities, which, essentially, had to face the painful reality that the domestic economy had to abandon the revenue generated by local sex enterprises.
Policy implementation in Cyprus
To reiterate, the government of Cyprus has time and again been faced with barbed criticism for its feeble reaction to combating human trafficking for sexual purposes, since the domestic sex industry has been castigated for creating fertile conditions for the sexual exploitation of women, especially foreign women (Constantinou, 2013b). This pushed the government to seek a rather quick solution, and it came up with the implementation of an (immigration-oriented) anti-prostitution policy that would eventually lead most cabarets and pubs to close. This policy was the abolition in 2009 of employment visas (artiste visas) for foreign women intending to work in the local sex industry.
With regard to the domestic sex industry, prior to 2009 cabarets in Cyprus were the bread and butter of this industry. Notably, domestic cabarets differed considerably from the classic European type of cabaret where choreographed and musical shows are performed by professional dancers. Domestic cabarets, devoid of such artistic elements, offered stripteases and lap dances; female accompaniment of clients, on and/or off the premises; and illegal paid sex, usually in hotels or private apartments after closing time and occasionally directly in cabaret private rooms.
Much like cabarets, pubs were also venues where unlawful paid sex occurred (and still occurs). These venues operated with fewer staff than cabarets because they did not offer dance performances. A client could purchase intimacy if he provided the requisite amount of money or, in establishments where sex was offered more discreetly, if he became a regular customer and thus established trust with the proprietor.
In addition to the above, though to a lesser degree, there were brothels and street prostitution. Brothels too were illegal, and they operated within rented flats or houses. They typically hosted two or more prostitutes – non-European and European – procured by men who gathered clients in a rather informal manner, such as by word of mouth or sometimes formally through advertisements in local newspapers. By the same token, individual prostitution by Chinese female students, immigrant domestic workers, and political asylum seekers could be found in streets and areas known to be frequented by males – gyms, markets, and mini soccer fields. Such prostitution also occurred in private houses and flats where Cypriot or European women either received customers in their house and/or visited them in neutral venues (hotel rooms, for instance).
In all, the local sex industry (aside from the illegal and clandestine establishments) had become an apparatus within which legal entities – nightclubs, bars, and pubs – hosted illegal activities (for example, prostitution, nude dancing, and accompanying customers). Women involved in the domestic sex trade were required to accept employment contracts that were legally formulated yet illegally executed. Consequently, a number of migrant women were deceived and coerced into offering sex in the local sex trade (Lenz, 2006; Philaretou, 2005; Trimikliniotis and Souroulla, 2006). In reaction, in December 2008, upon assessing the situation in Cyprus with respect to human trafficking, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, claimed that a local cabaret’s profits amounted to €1 million a year on average, making a connection between the prosperous local sex industry and the fertile host environment supported by the government’s complacency. Notwithstanding the hyperbolic nature of such statements, they appear to have leveraged local action with a view to better dealing with sex trafficking.
As a result of internal and external pressures, the government of Cyprus decided to take more drastic measures to curtail both sexual exploitation and trafficking. More specifically, on 29 October 2008, the Council of Ministers approved the revision of the policy for the entry, residence, and employment of third-country nationals in the Republic of Cyprus as artists. The implementation of the new policy started on 1 February 2009, in accordance with the decision of the Ministerial Committee for the Employment of Third Country Nationals. The new policy consisted of the abolition of special visas for artistes, the establishment of stringent procedures for issuing temporary residence and employment permits for cabarets and pubs, and revision of the legislation regulating private employment agencies.
As a result, whereas up until 2009 cabaret dancers would enter Cyprus on an artiste visa – a specific visa type for cabaret artists that was introduced in 1987 by the Ministry of the Interior (Ombudsman’s Office in Cyprus, 2003) – today such permits no longer exist and, instead, performing artists visas are issued, though to a much lesser extent. For instance, whereas 8650 artist visas were issued in the period 2005–8, only 3097 performing visas were issued in the period 2009–14 (a 64 percent decrease). As a result, the number of cabarets has shrunk remarkably. For example, whereas in 2008 there were 75 cabarets nationwide, currently there are only 25 (a 67 percent decrease).
Situational prevention and crime displacement
In fact, via the implementation of the policy that abolished artiste visas, the Cyprus government failed to deal with the demand for paid sex on the island (which plays a major role in fostering sex trafficking) and focused solely on the supply end of the problem. It enforced the law on reducing the increased inflow of foreign females (potential victims of crime or individuals willing to take the risk and sell sex) into the local sex industry (crime-perpetuating venues), with the aim of eliminating the possible conduits by which the demand for purchased sex (deviants or offenders 8 ) was met.
This rationale (although never considered by the policy makers involved) borrows elements from the situational crime prevention model. Specifically, as the model’s founder put it, situational prevention comprises opportunity-reducing measures that focus on specific types of crime involving the management, design, or manipulation of the immediate environment that ultimately make crime more difficult and risky, or less rewarding, to a wide range of offenders (Clarke, 1997: 4). In effect, although the abolition of artiste visas led to the elimination of commercial sex venues in Cyprus, with the implementation of a policy that was designed to reduce the opportunities for crime commission, this policy nonetheless omitted to deal with the particular population that, up to that point, sustained and (partly) induced the supply of paid sex. This being the case, and given that demand remained active, if not steady, the criminal activities that formerly occurred in known venues and by known actors shifted direction and followed alternative trajectories. Put in a more technical way, the implementation of the policy led to the displacement of prostitution-related crime.
It is notable that crime displacement is conceded to be an expected outcome of situational crime prevention strategies (Cornish and Clarke, 1986), and is a predictable effect of crime control policies (Barr and Pease, 1990), especially if such actions aim to control prostitution (Lowman, 1992). It has long been established that crime displacement can take different forms (Hakim and Rengert, 1981; Reppetto, 1976). As detailed by Bowers and Johnson (2003: 276), there are six prominent types of crime displacement: temporal displacement (crimes take place at different times of the day); tactical displacement (different tactics are used); target displacement (different types of target are selected); type of crime displacement (a new crime is selected); spatial displacement (crimes are committed in new locations); and perpetrator displacement (the replacement of criminals put out of action by new criminals).
Hypothesis
To reiterate, crime displacement is the relocation of crime, a change in the conduits by which crime is conducted, a shift in the types of venue that host crime and in the timing of crime, and also in the actors who become involved in crime. This article explores the foregoing. Specifically, it is hypothesized that in 2009 and after, owing to the abolition of the artiste visa, the crime of human trafficking for sexual purposes (including acts of prostitution) changed character; that is, there was a shift in the places where and times at which sexual exploitation/prostitution takes place, and also a shift in the actors involved in these criminal endeavours.
Methodology
Official crime statistics do not reflect the actual extent of crime because both under-reporting and under-recording of crime impede the actual and valid aggregation of crime rates (MacDonald, 2002). Rightly (as personal experience with the Cyprus police also has shown), recorded crime is not a direct measure of true crime because it is influenced by both the degree to which the police enforce the law and the effectiveness of the police in detecting such cases. This is especially the case with sex trafficking, where victims do not readily disclose their victimization to the authorities. As Tarling and Morris (2010: 2) assert, ‘reporting crime may be an embarrassing admission of one’s vulnerability or culpability in the crime’. Indeed, as it is often the case in sex crimes, victims blame themselves for their victimization and this very fact prevents them from reporting it to the police. Apart from this, victims (especially sex trafficking victims) do not want to get involved in the criminal justice system because they fear reprisals against themselves and/or their relatives, do not trust the host legal system, are bribed by law breakers, or experience other personal predicaments (Constantinou, 2013a).
On the other hand, figures based on intelligence gathered by the police, if correctly analysed, could better reflect the real extent of, and trends in, crime. Police intelligence comprises direct verbal and written submissions by citizens to the police of various pieces of information that come to their attention. Such information usually includes a suspected criminal act(s), a geographical location, a postal address (flat number, etc.), the number of people involved and their gender, approximate age, and conjectured nationality. Furthermore, some intelligence may be more descriptive and provide police with names, telephone numbers, time of the day when the illicit acts occur, passwords, and car registration numbers, among other facts.
For the most part, intelligence concerns evidence or suspicions that derive from indiscriminate and genuine observations of citizens’ social worlds. It is notable that not all intelligence was confirmed by the police, because the volume of intelligence combined with the police’s lack of resources prevented police from pursuing each and every piece of intelligence. Moreover, by the time the police got involved the culprits had often relocated or prostitutes had left the island. That said, my analysis draws mainly on police intelligence.
The Office of Combating Trafficking in Human Beings of the Cyprus Police, inter alia, receives and keeps records of all the intelligence concerning the offences of sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and prostitution. The intelligence (n = 1103) gathered by the police during the 11 years 2004–14 was analysed via the application of independent t-tests. Furthermore, to test the hypothesis outlined above, six variables were employed. That is, five predictor variables and one outcome variable (number of acts of sexual exploitation/prostitution) were measured. Of these variables, three were binary (nationality, season, conduit), two were categorical (venue, sex) and one was a ratio (number of acts). The predictor variables were selected based on the specific (as noted above in this section) content of the information and the data required for running a statistical analysis to quantify crime displacement.
Findings
As already noted, the univariate statistical data analysis is mainly focused on the illegal acts of prostitution/sexual exploitation. Starting from the analysis of the perpetrators involved in the crime of sexual exploitation/prostitution, who are basically the conduits by which such exploitation is made possible, it was found that there has been a shift from a pimp/exploiter-dominated area towards a situation in which both pimps and autonomous prostitutes are equally involved in the act. It appears that, whereas in the past pimps/exploiters controlled the criminal activities in the sphere of prostitution, later this was somewhat reversed, and prostitutes themselves stepped in and began to instigate their own acts. Yet, although a number of women seem to be in control of their sexual acts, sexual exploitation of women has not ceased to exist, since half of the incidence of prostitution is still mediated by pimps. This is defined by the analysis of a variable (conduits) that is measured by two items, namely pimp and individual.
According to my analysis (see Figure 1), on average, the incidence of individually instigated prostitution was lower before 2009 (M = 14.60, SE = 2.71) than from 2009 onwards (M = 26.16, SE = 4.96). This difference was significant: t(8) = 1.92, p < .05. Likewise, the incidence of sexual exploitation via pimps up to 2008 was higher (M = 71.80, SE = 13.25) than from 2009 and after (M = 30.83, SE = 2.79). Again, this difference was significant: t(4) = 3.31, p < .05.
Conduits for sexual exploitation/prostitution.
Much like the significant changes that took place in the ways in which paid sex is provided (mediated/unmediated) to the clients, changes were also uncovered in the nationalities of the offenders who procure sexual activities (see Figure 2). As evidenced by the statistical analysis, the two items used to calculate the nationality variable (foreign and indigenous individuals) are moving towards conversion. Before 2009, the difference between the two categories was in the region of 60 % after 2009, this difference reduced remarkably. On average, the incidence of prostitution procured by natives showed a significant decrease between the pre-2009 period (M = 60.20, SE = 11.61) and the period from 2009 (M = 20.50, SE = 1.87). This difference was significant: t(4) = 3.71, p < .05. On the other hand, although the increase detected in foreign individuals involved in sexual exploitation before 2009 (M = 10.80, SE = 2.19) and from 2009 onwards (M = 13.33, SE = 1.89) was not significant – t(8) = 0.93, p > .05 – it did represent a medium-sized effect: r = .30.
Nationality of exploiter/pimp.
In line with the negative correlation of the above categories, male and female exploiters showed a similar tendency. Before 2009 the sexual exploiters were predominantly male, whereas, later, male exploiters decreased and female exploiters began to participate more often in the illegal acts. Yet the scene is still dominated by male culprits.
On average, there was a significant decrease in male procurers in the period 2004–8 (M = 34.20, SE = 10.49), and between 2009 and 2014 (M = 21.50, SE = 2.17). This difference was significant: t(4) = 3.96, p < .05. On the other hand, though the increase detected in females involved in the sexual exploitation of others between the pre-2009 period (M = 33.00, SE = 17.72) and the period from 2009 (M = 7.00, SE = 1.41) was not significant – t(4) = 1.07, p > .05 – it did represent a medium-sized effect: r = .46. Yet, as shown by the descriptive diagram in Figure 3, the two items are negatively correlated; as the male procurers decrease, the female procurers increase.
Gender of exploiter/pimp.
Thus far the changes that occurred in relation to the perpetrators involved in sexual exploitation have been analysed. Now attention shifts to the temporal displacement of crime. Because it was not possible to detect whether or not there were any changes in the times of the day that sexual exploitation/prostitution occurred, changes in the time of the year when such acts took place were identified. More specifically, the year was divided into two seasons, namely high and low, with the high season comprising the months between May and October (the high tourist season) and the low season covering the rest of the year, from November to April (the low tourist season).
It was found that acts of sexual exploitation were reported to occur more often during the high season than in the low season. On average, there was a significant decrease in prostitution-related crimes in the low season between the 2004–8 period (M = 58.75, SE = 10.38) and the 2009–14 period (M = 34.16, SE = 3.39). This difference was significant: t(3.64) = 2.66, p < .05.
On the other hand, although the increase in prostitution-related crimes detected in the high season between the pre-2009 period (M = 68.50, SE = 14.34) and the period from 2009 (M = 44.66, SE = 4.99) was not significant – t(3.73) = 1.84, p > .05 – it did represent a large effect: r = .68.
As shown by the descriptive diagram in Figure 4, the two items (high and low season) indicate that prostitution follows a seasonal pattern: acts of prostitution are more frequent during the spring and summer than in the autumn and winter.
Seasonal incidence of sexual exploitation/prostitution.
As regards the spatial displacement of sexual exploitation/prostitution, the variable of the venues that host such acts was analysed. In particular, three items of the variable (cabarets, apartments, pubs) indicated changes that required further analysis (see Figure 5).
Venues that host sexual exploitation/prostitution.
Starting with cabarets as the venue that traditionally hosts sexual exploitation/prostitution, it is shown that there was a remarkable decrease. This was almost inevitable given that, from 2009 onwards, most such establishments ceased to operate. On average, there was a significant decrease in sexual exploitation occurring in cabarets between the pre-2009 period (M = 21.8, SE = 4.34) and the period from 2009 (M = 3.50, SE = 1.64). This difference was significant: t(5.14) = 4.23, p < .05.
As regards the incidence of prostitution/sexual exploitation taking place within houses and apartments, there was found to be an increase. Specifically, even though there was a marked increase in prostitution and sexual exploitation acts taking place in apartments and houses after 2009 (M = 30.16, SE = 8.66), in contrast to the period before 2009 (M = 21.40, SE = 4.11), this increase was not statistically significant: t(7.05) = 0.85, p > .05. Nonetheless, it did represent a medium-sized effect: r = .30.
In relation to pubs that are used as venues to facilitate prostitution, it was found that there was a marked decrease. On average, there was a significant decrease in sexual exploitation occurring in pubs between the pre-2009 period (M = 28.6, SE = 6.51) and the period from 2009 (M = 13.00, SE = 0.85). This difference was significant: t(4.13) = 2.61, p < .05.
In all, it was found that as sexual exploitation in venues such as cabarets and pubs was reported to decrease, prostitution/sexual exploitation in private houses and flats increased, a negative correlation overall.
Placing the displacement of prostitution/sexual exploitation in context
There is no doubt that there is a current global tendency to demonize commercial sex and to campaign for its immediate abolition, nor is it questioned that there is a transition from treating men who indulge in prostitution as natural to penalizing them for doing so (Brooks-Gordon and Gelsthorpe, 2003). However, before rushing to endorse anti-trafficking policies along the lines of the Swedish model (which penalizes individuals who purchase sex; see Ekberg, 2004), one must not forget that sex for pay is recorded, in Cyprus at least, as happening from about 560 BC (Pyrgou, 2005: 265). That is not to say that sexual behaviour is unalterable, but to point out that extreme policies will certainly not effectuate any remarkable results. Interestingly, brothels in Cyprus were abolished on 1 January 1932, 9 after suggestions from the Special Body of Experts on Traffic in Women and Children in 1927, 10 and an international inclination towards the suppression of prostitution for the purpose of eliminating trafficking and procuring. 11
The abolition of brothels was expected effectively to eliminate prostitution and procurement. However, it led to the creation of a new scattered form of clandestine prostitution. In fact, after the abolition of brothels, procurement was reported to have decreased, yet prostitution did not; on the contrary, it dispersed to various locales in the urban areas and, while it became less conspicuous, it diminished the police’s capacity to apprehend culprits (Constantinou, 2013b).
Yet, it must be noted that, by pointing out the above shortfall, it is by no means intended to deprecate the prohibitionist approach to prostitution, because alternative policies to regulate or to prohibit prostitution have not so far proved to eradicate sex trafficking (Di Nicola and Ruspini, 2009). Rather, the purpose is to highlight the ambiguous impact that policies and legislation concerning the regulation of sex may have (Sullivan, 2010).
Admittedly, it is highly unlikely that the law will stop prostitution from happening, because it is highly improbable that prostitution exists only because laws to prevent it are not strictly enforced. According to Walker (2001), any attempts to curb ‘recreational crime’ such as drugs, gambling, and prostitution have thus far clearly failed. There are limits to the extent to which legislation can bring about any change concerning products or services that many people want. Based on Walker’s model (2001: 262), if prostitution is penalized by law, the following effects will occur: (1) if a lot of people want sexual services, someone will try to supply them;(2) legal efforts to suppress that supply will cause evasion and criminal syndicates; (3) the enforcement of law will itself propel secondary crime (for example, wars between gangs, corruption of law enforcement), abuse of individual rights (illegal searches and seizures), and loss of respect for the law; and (4) intensifying the enforcement of law promotes adaptations (for example, clandestine prostitution) and transfer of the criminal acts to people more willing to take increased risks.
Indeed, the demand for paid sex fuels a series of illicit activities and, thus, it must be addressed with much logic and planning. Suppressing the demand for sex in order to prevent trafficking of women in one place (be it a municipal or a national territory) is not that different from attempting to prevent homeless people from frequenting particular spaces by prohibiting passers-by from contributing to their sustenance with donations. Just as homeless people will most probably relocate (and thus homelessness will not be eradicated), so too will sex trafficking be displaced to another place but not extinguished. Insofar as national authorities take short-term preventive measures to merely divert sex trafficking from their doorsteps and passively allow poverty-stricken social milieus in third countries to proliferate, their members will always seek every possible way to survive or improve their living standards, and prostitution is certainly one such way. Nonetheless, this example is provided only to illustrate one aspect of the problem, that of seeking immediate and temporary solutions to human trafficking, not to reduce and oversimplify the complex and multifarious character of the issue at hand.
Notably, behind the implementation of anti-trafficking legal actions lie different national politico-economic interests that influence the amount of resources and direction of efforts undertaken to deal with human trafficking. For instance, EU member states respond to human trafficking with a law and order approach, for human trafficking is perceived to be a problem of illegal immigration and organized crime, rather than a human rights issue. As such, prevention in its true proactive sense gives way to reactive and temporary strategies.
According to Lee (2011), the linking of trafficking to the migration–crime–security nexus outweighs any other definitions, therefore the law and order approach prevails over the others. No doubt, Western national administrations, spearheaded by the US, exhibit zeal in controlling illegal immigration and organized crime (Aradau, 2008; Askola, 2007; Lee, 2011).
Indeed, as the study of Cyprus has illustrated, the foregoing factors have played an active role in forcing prostitution-related crime into new adaptations. The anti-prostitution policy that was implemented in 2009, with the aim of reducing prostitution and prostitution-related human trafficking, failed to live up to its objectives. Instead, it caused the displacement of the relevant criminal acts: a displacement of the temporal, spatial, and tactical features of crime as well as a displacement of the perpetrators/participants involved.
After all, it can be said that crime displacement is not inevitable (Guerette and Bowers, 2009), limited, or probably short-lived (Matthews, 1993: 29). Quite to the contrary, it is a viable scenario (Heil and Nichols, 2014), and, as far as the Cyprus paradigm is concerned, crime displacement (linked to legal action to control prostitution) is evident, substantial, and long-lived.
Conclusion
Contrary to what is often contended in the literature on human trafficking and prostitution (though the empirical evidence to this effect is scarce), anti-prostitution and prostitution-related human trafficking policies do not necessarily yield the desired results. For instance, the case of Cyprus has proved that, as a result of the implementation of an anti-prostitution policy in 2009, the array of prostitution-related (and sex trafficking) crimes deviated from their traditional characteristics, and began to occur in different places and at different times, perpetrated by different actors. Trafficking in humans for sexual purposes ceased to involve only indigenous male traffickers who used cabarets and pubs as their arenas of exploitation all year round. Instead, foreign perpetrators (especially female) entered into the picture of human trafficking, and began to undertake illegal activities (sexual exploitation) at private venues (houses and flats) and to exhibit seasonal patterns. Additionally, procuring and sexual exploitation have somewhat diminished, as today more women practise prostitution alone, free from the control of procurers and exploiters.
No doubt as a consequence of the legal action against prostitution, sexual exploitation and prostitution have progressively become more dispersed and followed new adaptations. Relatedly, in the text it was noted that the 1932 law on the abolition of brothels in Cyprus did not yield the expected results. On the contrary, the prostitution rate remained the same, because most prostitutes went underground, receiving customers in their houses. Astonishingly, 80 or so years later, the same old story has revived and produced almost the same old outcome; that is, scattered, clandestine, and individual prostitution.
In other words, the enforcement of law aiming to cut prostitution and sex trafficking has spawned a series of changes in the social organization of the domestic sex industry, of which the displacement of illegal sexual acts is one major component.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The findings of this article are part of a project (TRACE) that has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 607669.