Prostitution in Cyprus
overview of the legality and practice of prostitution in Cyprus
Prostitution in Cyprus is not illegal, but operating brothels, organising prostitution rings, living off the profits of prostitution, encouraging prostitution or forcing a person to engage in prostitution are illegal activities.
In 2015, MP Rikkos Mappourides called for prostitution in Cyprus to be legalised.
History
The ancient Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, was reputed to have been born near Paphos, and a temple was built on the site. From the 5th century BC sacred prostitution took place at the temple. Every woman in the land was expected to make a journey to the temple once in her lifetime and have sex in exchange for money in the temple grounds.
Following the island coming under control of the British, prostitutes were required to be registered. In the Larnaca Town Museum the 1916 registration book is on display, which contains photographs of the town's prostitutes. Brothels were outlawed by the Governor, Ronald Storrs, in 1931, but there were exceptions during WW2 for the use of allied troops.
In an effort to reduce the spread of STIs, the Army Medical Corps introduced a card system for prostitutes. In 1941, 300 cards were issued.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Prostitution in Cyprus” as overview of the legality and practice of prostitution in Cyprus. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as overview of the legality and practice of prostitution in Cyprus. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q55630632. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 1916, 1931 and 1941.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prostitution in Cyprus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.