Let’s make it clear to Israel’s incoming Knesset
Members that in Israel, women and children are simply not for sale.
For too long, the conversation surrounding
prostitution has been based on a myth. While the damage that stems from
inaccurate depictions of prostitution in popular culture is significant, it is
nothing compared to the damage created by misinformed policymakers and law
enforcement officials.
There is a dangerous gap between the glamorous
depiction of prostitution in pop-culture and the reality that prostituted women
and minors are forced to contend with on a daily basis.
When society’s decision makers ascribe to these myths
and are oblivious to the suffering of prostituted people, real women and
children fall into the abyss and are all too often unable to climb back out.
Recently, I was shocked and disappointed when Yoav
Kotler, the head of the investigative branch of the Tel Aviv district police,
was quoted in a Jerusalem Post article (“TA police raid brothel in massive tax
evasion case,” August 22) as saying that “99% of prostituted women in Israel
willingly work” in the flesh trade. Contrary to what Mr. Kotler believes, most
women do not choose to be prostitutes.
In fact, most women who enter prostitution in Israel
aren’t women at all, but young girls. According to Saleet, a Tel Aviv shelter
for prostituted women, the average age of entrance into Israel’s flesh trade is
14. Clearly, no 14 year-old would willingly choose to working in this so-called
profession.
Moreover, most prostituted persons have experienced
severe sexual, physical and emotional abuse before they enter the sex trade.
This serves as boot camp for prostitution in that it normalizes the abuse that
is so common in the trade. Decades of research show that prostitution is multi-traumatic,
with rape, beatings, coercion, depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, a
high rate of suicide, drastically lowered life expectancy, and sexually
transmitted diseases being just a few of the horrors with which prostituted
women and minors must contend.
Prostitution never has been and never will be a
profession like any other. In a recent Haaretz feature entitled “Hell du Jour:
Meet Israel’s Daylight Prostitutes,” one prostituted woman explained how she
felt when she was with Johns. She related, “I die inside anew every time.” How
many lawyers, waiters or doctors say these kinds of things about the time that
they spend with their clients? How many other professionals use drugs in order
to cope with the realities of their job, find themselves unable to touch their
children or partners, and are often unable to form and maintain intimate
relationships? Can we even name another profession in which 86% of employees
are regularly beaten by their bosses and clients? And we won’t even mention the
fact that 68% of these employees are also raped.
To be sure, there are a small percentage of
prostitutes who claim they “chose the life” they live, but they do not
represent the norm. For the vast majority of trafficked and prostituted people,
prostitution is not a choice. At least not in the way we like to think about
choices.
Saying that prostitution is a choice is like saying
that someone chose to jump off a roof, forgetting to mention that the building
was on fire. It is reprehensible to protect the right of the few who will
choose this “profession” when there are so many others who desire and deserve
the right to leave it.
To my dismay, the present Knesset ultimately failed
to protect the rights of the majority of prostituted women and minors in
Israel. Though MK Orit Zuaretz’s proposed legislation to criminalize the act of
purchasing sexual services was approved unanimously by the Ministerial
Committee in February, it failed to advance beyond that.
This, in spite of the fact that similar legislation
in other countries has been responsible for drastically reducing the demand for
sexual services, sex trafficking and the prostitution of children. As the
proposed legislation has not completed its first reading in the Knesset, the
Prohibition of Consumption of Prostitution Services and Community Treatment
Bill will be scrapped entirely and the lengthy legislative process must start
from scratch.
Still, there is hope. Israel’s politicians are again
gearing up for primaries, which means that we now have the opportunity and
responsibility to raise issues our society needs to address. This primary
season, let’s make sure that we start a conversation about prostitution, and
that the conversation be based on nothing but the facts.
We’ve seen the damage that can be done when policymakers
are unaware of the realities of prostitution. We now have the golden
opportunity to vote in a Knesset that is both educated about this issue as well
as ready and willing to advance progressive legislation when the time comes.
Let’s make it clear to Israel’s incoming Knesset
Members that in Israel, women and children are simply not for sale.
Rebecca Hughes is the projects assistant for ATZUM’s
Task Force on Human Trafficking (www.atzum.org), an entity that aims to engage
the public and government agencies to confront and eradicate modern slavery in
Israel.
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