Brussels, Belgium. Greek MEP Eleonora Meleti told the European Parliament on Tuesday that she had promised victims that “someone will finally take care of these open wounds” during a debate on her report into sexual violence against women and girls during Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
She said the report was not only about Cyprus but about the women and girls who recounted experiences of violence, despair, humiliation, and abuse.
Meleti addresses parliament
Meleti said many of those who suffered sexual abuse were underage girls, pregnant women, newlywed daughters, mothers, and grandmothers, and that they were “tortured, raped, and abused by the Turkish invaders”.
She said the women met during a fact-finding visit to Cyprus last year had broken their silence for the first time in 51 years.
Fact-finding visit
Meleti, a member of Greece’s ruling party Nea Dimokratia, led the visit to the island last year and met sexual abuse victims.
She told fellow MEPs that many of the women met them without informing their husbands or children and said they had never spoken before because of fear or shame.
According to Meleti, “their rape did not end then” but continued through stigma, isolation, marginalisation, rejection, and loneliness.
Call for recognition and compensation
Meleti said the people she interviewed “spoke for all those who will forever remain condemned to silence”.
She said that before leaving Cyprus, the delegation had promised to make the women’s cries heard widely and to work for their recognition as victims of war crimes.
She also said she hoped rape would be recognised as a weapon in conflict zones and called for Turkey to pay compensation to the victims.
Political context
Meleti delivered her speech on behalf of the European People’s Party, the centre-right group to which both Disy and President Nikos Christodoulides belong.
She was followed by Italian MEP Cecilia Strada, representing the centre-left Socialists and Democrats, the group to which Diko belongs.