Human trafficking is the modern form of slavery, which undermines human dignity and violates fundamental human rights. Victims are often recruited, transported, and housed using force, coercion, or fraud, and are forced to live in abusive conditions, which include being sexually exploited, forced labor or service, begging, engaging in illegal activities, or organ removal. They are required to provide services seven days a week and are often deprived of their personal documents. In several cases they are blackmailed into returning sums of money to their traffickers for alleged debts owed to them. They live under threats from their traffickers and in fear of reprisals. For a trafficked person, the prospect of escaping from their traffickers seems impossible.
The main causes that make a victim vulnerable to conditions of exploitation are rooted in poverty, the incomplete functioning of democratic institutions of the rule of law, gender inequality and violence against women, wars and armed conflicts, natural disasters in countries of origin of victims, economic impoverishment and social exclusion, lack of opportunities and employment, lack of access to education, child labor and discrimination. A major cause of human trafficking, however, is demand and profit (eg in the booming sex industry and the resulting demand for sexual services and the demand for cheap labor to reduce costs and increase profit). The connection of human trafficking to organized crime and the smuggling of people across borders is a given, and human trafficking remains a low-risk, high-reward criminal enterprise. The International Labor Organization estimates that annual profits from human trafficking reach $32 billion, while according to the UN, human trafficking is the second largest source of income for organized crime, after drug trafficking.
Due to its geographical location, Cyprus is the first point of entry for many immigrants in Europe and, by extension, is a country of destination for victims of human trafficking. Experience shows that sexual and labor exploitation are the most common forms of human trafficking in the Republic
Below is the Detailed Guide for Victims of Trafficking in Persons and the triptych in various languages which was prepared by a sub-group of the Multi-Thematic Coordinating Group against Trafficking in Persons, which was made up of TAMP, YPAS, CYPRUS POLICE, YKE, YPAN and CYPRUS Refugee Council