Image: pht_09578, Families after church, Photograph, 1924.
In the mid-war years, fathers of poor families would seek wealthy families to entrust their daughters with, so they could be raised under better conditions. They would approach wealthy persons via intermediaries.
A poor villager who found someone suitable would reluctantly leave his daughter to her new parents in Nicosia and return to his village alone. Throughout the years following her adoption, the father would visit his daughter.
Similarly, boys would also be left to wealthy families as adoptees. Adopted boys would be called uşak (servant boy) and those with darker skin were referred to as ‘lala’.
Male adoptees were quite compliant and when they grew up, the family would help them find work and a partner for marriage.
© Costas and Rita Severis Foundation
The ‘Did You Know’ series is made possible with the support of OPAP (Cyprus).
