WUNRN
Israel's
Fight Against Sex Trafficking |
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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.
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.
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.
"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. "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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