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.

This paper was presented at the Workshop on Developments and Patterns of Migration Processes in Central and Eastern Europe, 25 to 27 August 2005, Prague.