Thousands
of foreign women have been trafficked for sex in Israel
Marina rarely leaves her two-room home in northern
Israel these days.
She is in hiding - wanted by the Israeli authorities
for being an illegal immigrant, and by the criminal gangs who brought her here
to sell her into prostitution.
Marina - not her real name - was lured to Israel by
human traffickers.
During the height of the phenomenon, from the
beginning of the 1990s to the early years of 2000, an estimated 3,000 women a
year were brought to Israel on the false promise of jobs and a better way of
life.
“When I was in the Ukraine, I had a difficult life,”
said Marina, who came to Israel in 1999 at the age of 33 after answering a
newspaper advertisement offering the opportunity to study abroad.
“I was taken to an apartment in Ashkelon, and other
women there told me I was now in prostitution. I became hysterical, but a guy
starting hitting me and then others there raped me.
“I was then taken to a place where they sold me -
just sold me!” she said, recalling how she was locked in a windowless basement
for a month, drank water from a toilet and was deprived of food.
MAIN ORIGINS OF WOMEN
TRAFFICKED TO ISRAEL
Russia
Moldova
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Belarus
US State Department
Trafficking in Persons report 2007 [22MB]
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That part of her ordeal only ended when she managed
to escape, but the physical and mental scars remain.
Last year, the United Nations named Israel as one of
the main destinations in the world for trafficked women; it has also
consistently appeared as an offender in the annual US State Department’s
Trafficking in Persons (Tip) report.
While this year’s report said Israel was making “significant
efforts” to eliminate trafficking, it said it still does not “fully comply with
the minimum standards” to do so.
Like Marina, some trafficked women are brought into
the country legally, while others are smuggled by Bedouins across the border
from Egypt.
In all cases, the traffickers - as many as 20 in the
chain from recruitment to sale - take away the women’s passports before selling
them on to pimps.
Sometimes the women are subjected to degrading human
auctions, where they are stripped, examined and sold for $8,000-$10,000.
Sanctions threat
Prostitution in Israel is legal, but pimping and
maintaining a brothel are not.
The law however is not widely enforced and few
brothels are closed down.
Brothels in Tel Aviv
Brothels are illegal in Israel,
but many still operate openly
In Tel Aviv’s Neve Shaanan district for instance, just a short walk from the city’s five-star
tourist hotels, brothels masquerading as massage parlours, saunas and even
internet cafes, fill the side streets.
One such place even operates opposite the local
police station.
There are bars on windows and heavily-built men guard
the doors, which are only opened to let customers in and out.
Inside, groups of sullen-looking women sit in
dimly-lit rooms, waiting for their next client.
Foreign women fetch the highest prices, with
trafficked women forced to work up to 18 hours a day.
For years, the absence of anti-trafficking laws in
Israel meant such activity - less risky and often more profitable than
trafficking drugs or arms - went unchecked.
“During the first 10 years of trafficking, Israel did
absolutely nothing,” said Nomi Levenkron, of the Migrant Workers’ Hotline, an
NGO which helps trafficked women and puts pressure on the state to act.
In 2003 we used to find women who were being raped,
jailed and under a great amount of violence. In 2007, the situation is
completely different.
Raanan Caspi
Israeli anti-trafficking police chief
“Women were trafficked into Israel - the first case
we uncovered was in 1992 - and not much really happened,” she said.
“Occasionally traffickers were brought to trial, but
the victims were arrested as well, they were forced to testify, and then they
were deported.”
In 2000, trafficking for sexual exploitation was made
a crime but the punishments were light and its implementation was poor, NGOs
say.
It was only after repeated criticism of Israel by the
United States - and the threat of sanctions - that authorities began to act.
Investigations into suspected traffickers increased,
stiff jail terms were handed down and Israel’s borders were tightened against
people smuggling.
Changing tactics
Campaigners say things began to change for the better
in 2004, when the government opened a shelter in north Tel Aviv for women who
had been trafficked for sex.
It marked a change in the way the state perceived
them - as victims of a crime rather than accomplices.
There are some 30 women at the Maggan shelter - most
from former Soviet states, but also five from China.
Former trafficked women with a child at a shelter in
Tel Aviv
For years, Israel treated
trafficked women as criminals
“When they come here they are in a bad condition,”
said Rinat Davidovich, the shelter’s director.
“Most have sexual diseases and some have hepatitis
and even tuberculosis. They also have problems going to sleep because they
remember what used to happen to them at night,” she said.
“It’s very hard and it’s a long procedure to start to
help and treat them.”
Police say their actions have led to a significant
drop in the number of women now being trafficked into Israel for sex -
hundreds, rather than thousands, a year - and they say the women’s working
environment has improved too.
“There is a significant change in the conditions that
the women are being held in,” said anti-trafficking police chief Raanan Caspi.
“In 2003 we used to find women who were being raped,
incarcerated and suffering violence. In 2007, the situation is completely
different - they get paid in most cases and the conditions that they’re in are
much more humane.”
But the true picture might not be so clear-cut.
Campaigners say increased police activity has also
had an adverse effect. Instead of operating openly in brothels, traffickers
have become more discreet, plying their trade in private apartments and escort
agencies, making the practice more difficult to detect.
“We’ve been keeping tabs on trends, in terms of, for
instance, prices of exploitative services,” said Yedida Wolfe, of the Task
Force on Human Trafficking.
“Those prices have not gone up, which leads us to
believe that the supply of victims has not gone down.
“While government officials are saying that their
efforts have drastically cut the number of victims in the country, the NGOs on
the scene really don’t feel that’s true.”
Israel might well have turned a corner in its fight
against the traffickers, but the battle is far from won.
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