08 est.)

Manpower fit for military service:

Greek Cypriot National Guard (GCNG):
males age 16-49: 165,042
females age 16-49: 158,869 (2008 est.)

Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually:

male: 6,482
female: 6,208 (2008 est.)

Military expenditures:

3.8% of GDP (2005 est.)

Transnational Issues
Cyprus

Disputes - international:

hostilities in 1974 divided the island into two de facto autonomous
entities, the internationally recognized Cypriot Government and a
Turkish-Cypriot community (north Cyprus); the 1,000-strong UN
Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has served in Cyprus since
1964 and maintains the buffer zone between north and south; on 1 May
2004, Cyprus entered the European Union still divided, with the EU's
body of legislation and standards (acquis communitaire) suspended in
the north; Turkey protests Cypriot Government creating hydrocarbon
blocks and maritime boundary with Lebanon in March 2007

Refugees and internally displaced persons:

IDPs: 210,000 (both Turkish and Greek Cypriots; many displaced for
over 30 years) (2007)

Trafficking in persons:

current situation: Cyprus is primarily a destination country for a
large number of women trafficked from Eastern and Central Europe,
the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic for the purpose of
sexual exploitation; traffickers continued to fraudulently recruit
victims for work as dancers in cabarets and nightclubs on short-term
"artiste" visas, for work in pubs and bars on employment visas, or
for illegal work on tourist or student visas
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Cyprus is on the Tier 2 Watch List
for a third consecutive year for failure to show evidence of
increasing efforts to combat human trafficking during 2007; although
Cyprus passed a new trafficking law and opened a government
trafficking shelter, these efforts are outweighed by its failure to
show tangible and critically needed progress in the areas of law
enforcement, victim protection, and the prevention of trafficking
(2008)

Illicit drugs:

minor transit point for heroin and hashish via air routes and
container traffic to Europe, especially from Lebanon and Turkey;
some cocaine transits as well; despite a strengthening of
anti-money-laundering legislation, remains vulnerable to money
laundering; reporting of suspicious transactions in offshore sector
remains weak

This page was last updated on 18 December, 2008