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Every year, more than 3,000 women are trafficked into Israel and forced into sex work. Most of them are between 18 and 35 years of age.
The Israeli Women's Network (WIN), an NGO, says that 90 per cent of the women are 'smuggled' from Eastern Europe, especially from countries like Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Uzbekistan. Very often, the trafficked women are orphans who have been sold by their poor relatives.
The women arrive in Israel via the Egyptian border. The Israeli traffickers connect with some agencies working in east European countries. Very often the agencies (posing as recruitment agencies) tell young girls that they have jobs for maids and nannies in Israel. The girls are brought to Cairo and then sold to the Israeli trafficker. During this journey, they experience severe abuse and violence by their owners', says IWN.
IWN, which has been studying this trend since the late 1990s, found that the 'price' per woman ranges between US $4,000 and 10,000. The final price depends on the woman's looks and age. Once in Israel, the women are held in bars, apartments and brothels and often forced to accept 10-30 clients per day. They have no right to refuse a client and they are "employed" 30 days a month.
Judith Ilani from the assistance centre for sex-violence victims says, "Trafficked women are raped again and again. The few women who escape and reach our centre appear to have very low self-esteem and suffer from severe insecurity. Their work as sex slaves makes them vulnerable to physical violence, severe malnutrition, frequent maladies, pregnancies and abortions."
IWN says most of the clients are Israeli men, Arabs, tourists and foreign workers. Israel's demand for prostituted women since the mid-90s is bolstered by foreign workers. Many of Israel's nearly 200,000 (legal and illegal) foreign workers are young, unattached men likely to buy sex.
According police sources, more than a million client visits occur every month in Israel. The annual turnover of this industry is estimated to be US$700 million annually.
Olga K (name changed), who managed to escape her abusive trader, says that the Israeli authorities are not ready to hear their voices. "The Israeli government has done nothing to stop the sex traders. Trafficking in women must be stopped immediately by prosecuting the traders and pimps. Otherwise, this kind of trade will soon extend to eight-year-old girls as well.
IWN is one of the founders of the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women, which includes a number of human rights organisations and individuals. The coalition works to end the phenomenon of trafficking of women and to protect the rights of women trafficked into Israel. The coalition believes it is the responsibility of the state of Israel to take care of victims of trafficking and see to their initial rehabilitation and recuperation from their terrible experiences in Israel.
IWN says while trafficked women are frequently arrested as illegal workers, the men who brought them into Israel, many of whom are Israeli citizens, are not. After being arrested, the women are sent back home and most have to pay for their own flight. According to the immigration authorities, since the month of January 2004, 1,374 illegal womenworkers (without a valid permit) have been deported from the country. A quarter of these women are victims of trafficking.
At present, there is no law in Israel against trafficking in people, and no law against prostitution. However, there are a variety of crimes .- rape, abduction, battery, deceit and theft - which the traffickers and the pimps can be prosecuted for. "It's not a problem of finding the right section in the criminal code," say legal advisers in IWN, "it's more a problem of finding women who will testify."
The police in Israel say they are powerless to stop the flow of trafficked women because the women are scared to come to the police and complain. One of the demands of the coalition is that the government must provide a witness protection programme for the women who agree to testify against those involved in trafficking. The coalition also wants the state to establish a shelter offering services - medical, psychological, sociological and legal - to the women.
Yael Dayan, a former member of parliament and the Vice Mayor of Tel Aviv, says, "These foreign women are already here. It is our state's duty to locate the victims and offer them another job. Instead of taking responsibility for the terrible abuse they have experienced here, we have a tendency to explain the phenomenon by saying that 'prostitution' is the most ancient profession in the world'. By saying this, we choose to ignore the misery of the trafficked and give her 'owner' a sort of a legitimacy."
— NewsNetwork
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