The exposition of rape in Cyprus: From the crime scene to the court room

Abstract

This paper constitutes the first attempt to explore the act of rape in Cyprus. It delineates the nexus between victims of rape and offenders, as well as the circumstances in which the two converge. Also, it explores the legal backdrop against which rape court cases are dealt with by the local judiciary. For achieving this, 58 court cases (spanning from 2000 to 2020) are analysed. Findings underpin that female rapes in Cyprus do not markedly diverge from rapes occurring in offshore milieus. Also, although domestic statutory law on rape has long set aside the element of force, case law still carries remnants of judicial bias to that end.