Migration Processes in Central and Eastern Europe - Multiple Choices

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Migration through Gender, Age and Class Perspectives
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34
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'Fake' Marriages
as a Threat for the
Nation – Migrant
Sex Workers in
Cyprus
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Ramona Lenz
Against the backdrop of constructed analogies
between women and nation that many
feminist theorists have elaborately analysed,
women migrants may in a special way be
considered dangerous for national projects,
which may result in concrete racist and sexist discrimination
against them. This is especially true for Cyprus where
debates about nationality dominate public discourse in the
consequence of the Turkish invasion in 1974 that resulted in
the division of the island into a Turkish-Cypriot part and
a Greek-Cypriot part. Based on field research conducted in
2001 in the Greek-Cypriot Republic of Cyprus, this paper
explores how the discourse about nationality in Cyprus is
connected to attitudes and practices of exclusion of woman
migrants – mostly from Eastern Europe – working in the
local sex industry. One example of these attitudes and practices
is the high importance attached to the prosecution of
marriages of convenience between Cypriot men and migrant
sex workers and its connection to the increasing divorce rate
in Cyprus. Underlying these issues is the concept that family
has to be protected against external threat and at the same
time guarantee the defence of the nation.
This paper will show how migrant sex workers
with their precarious residence and work permits may serve
to confirm this concept of family and nation, and how this
is accompanied by the intention to control women's sexuality
– that of migrant women as well as that of national women.
It will explore the ambivalent but not necessarily contradictory
representation of migrant sex workers as a threat to national
borders and family ties on the one hand, and as victims who
need protection on the other hand, while at the same time
they serve to stabilise boundaries of conventional gender
roles in times of change.
The Republic of Cyprus has a total population
of around 700,000 people. Labour migration to Cyprus is
a relatively recent phenomenon. It increased significantly in
the '80s and more so during the '90s. An important factor
that contributed to the increase in labour migration was
the breakdown of the Soviet Union. In its aftermath many
Eastern European women migrated to Western and
Southern European countries (Trimikliniotis and Pantelides,
2003; Anthias, 2000). In Cyprus quite a few of them enter
with three-month working visas as “artistes” or “barmaids”
and work in so-called cabarets and bars that unofficially,
or rather semi-officially, offer sexual services. Officially
around 2,600 foreign women work as “artistes” or “barmaids”
in Cyprus (Cyprus Mail November 28, 2004), but it is
estimated that many more migrant women live or work
illegally in the country and likewise provide sexual services.
In the following paper I am going to look into the
discourse on migrant sex workers and their so-called “fake”
or “passport” marriages in Cyprus and how this discourse
resonates with nationalist ways of thinking. My research is
based on interviews with various actors who in one way or
another are part of the personnel that constitutes the sex
industry in the Republic of Cyprus. Among my interviewees
were sex workers from Eastern Europe, one bar and one
nightclub owner, two impresarios, a customer, officials from
police agency, immigration office and the bureau of the
Ombudswoman, a counselling officer for communicable
venereal diseases, NGO-representatives and lawyers.
Moreover, I analysed Greek-Cypriot newspapers written
in English.
My fieldwork was conducted in 2001, 27 years
after the division of the island and two and a half years
before the Republic of Cyprus became a member of the
European Union. When Cyprus gained its independence
from British colonial rule in 1960 the two largest communities
on the island, the Greek-Cypriot majority and the
Turkish-Cypriot minority, were left hostile to each other. In
the '60s the tension rose to inter-communal riots to which
Turkey responded in 1974 with the occupation of one third
of the island. The result was the division of Cyprus into a
Turkish-Cypriot part and a Greek-Cypriot part. Whereas the
Greek-Cypriots consider Greece to be their motherland, the
Turkish-Cypriots are committed to Turkey. Despite heightened
efforts of reunification in the run-up to the EU-accession,
the Greek-Cypriots voted against a reunion, so that
only the Greek-Cypriot part of Cyprus became member of
the European Union last year. Nationalist ways of thinking
are still rather prevalent in Cyprus. A discourse of victimhood
and constant external threat dominates the public
debate in Greek-Cypriot society and has effects on the way
women and migrants, and especially woman migrants,
are perceived.
Migration Processes in Central and Eastern Europe: Unpacking the Diversity