Human Trafficking in [Israel Street Children in [Israel] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Israel] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery State of Israel [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The State of Israel [map] is a republic
located in SW Asia on the Mediterranean Sea and is bordered by Lebanon (N),
by Israel is a destination country for low-skilled workers
from People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Romania, Jordan, Turkey, Thailand,
the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and India who migrate voluntarily for
contract labor in the construction, agriculture, and health care industries.
Some are subsequently subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude, such
as withholding of passports and other restrictions on movement, threats, and
physical intimidation. According to the Government of Israel, women working
in the health care field are particularly vulnerable to trafficking for
involuntary servitude. Many labor recruitment agencies in source countries
and in Israel require workers to pay up-front fees ranging from $1,000 to
$10,000 - a practice that may contribute to debt bondage and makes these
workers highly vulnerable to forced labor once in Israel. Israel is also a
destination country for women trafficked from Eastern Europe - primarily Ukraine,
Moldova, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Russia - for the purpose of commercial
sexual exploitation. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2007 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Israel's fight
against sex trafficking 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. Police say their actions have led
to a significant drop in the number of women now being trafficked into Israel
for sex. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Hotline for Migrant
Workers (HMW) The Hotline for Migrant Workers
(HMW), established in 1998, is a non-partisan, not for profit organization,
dedicated to (a) promoting the rights of undocumented migrant workers and
refugees and (b) eliminating trafficking in women in Israel. Call
03-560-2530 Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The law
guarantees foreign laborers legal status, decent working conditions, health
insurance, and a written employment contract; however, some employers forced
individual laborers who entered the country, both legally and illegally, to
live under conditions that constituted trafficking. While law enforcement
agencies have successfully prosecuted employers for labor law violations,
including for violations that were tantamount to trafficking, they have not
severely penalized labor agencies for trafficking because legislation does
not make trafficking illegal if it is for purposes other than prostitution.
There were numerous documented cases of foreign laborers living in harsh
conditions, subjected to debt bondage, and restricted in their movements. Organized crime groups trafficked
women, primarily from the former In October, 2 NGOs claimed there
were 200 thousand foreign workers in the country and that 20 percent of these
workers were trafficking victims. During the year the Ministry of Industry,
Trade, and Labor (ITL) revoked 185 permits to hire foreign workers, opened
1,220 files against employers suspected of violating foreign worker
employment laws, and imposed 8,356 administrative fines on employers. Also
during the year, the ITL filed 208 criminal indictments against employers,
including manpower companies, for violations of labor laws and won 38
judgments against violators. NGOs
warn against plan to increase Russian visas However, Russia is considered a
transit destination for trafficking operations, with many men, women and
children from neighboring countries arriving there before being transported
elsewhere. Egypt has no visa
requirements for Russian visitors, and its border with Israel is considered
to be a main entry point for human traffickers. A spokesman for Aharonovitch told
the Post zthat the minister was aware of the problems of human trafficking in
Israel and that the issue needed to be tackled; however, he added that there
was little connection between the trafficking and the cancellation of visa
requirements for Russian visitors. He
also said that the number of women arriving from Russia was much lower than
those from other countries and that countries with border policies stricter
than Israel's still had to contend with women and men being smuggled in for
illegal work purposes. ISRAEL:
Shelter tries to rehabilitate victims of human trafficking Foreign women who are victims of trafficking
can now get support at a special shelter - the Maagan shelter - in Tel Aviv
dedicated to cater for their needs. In
2002 the Israeli government, in an attempt to encourage these women to
testify against the people who bought and sold them, decided to offer them
work visas in return for sworn statements detailing their tribulations. The
visas run until one year after the end of their trials. Women
protest Ha'aretz sex ads TFHT filed a report in June
demanding an investigation into the paper and its owner, Amos Schoken. The
advertisements in question offer the services of prostitutes, while other ads
call for women to work in prostitution in Israel or abroad. According to TFHT head Roni Aloni Sedovnik,
advertisements related to prostitution are far more expensive than standard
ads and therefore could not be the initiative of prostitutes advertising
privately. The ads could only be funded by wealthy organized crime
syndicates, she maintained. Freedom of expression, Sedovnik
said, "is subservient to a person's right not to be enslaved ... By
giving a stage to pimps and other human traffickers, [the paper is allowing]
organized and efficient trading in trafficking victims." The ads
"make the paper complicit in the crime," she added. Israel's fight
against sex trafficking 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. Police say their actions have led
to a significant drop in the number of women now being trafficked into Israel
for sex. Ukrainian
national says employer raped her, confiscated passport Two years ago, S., 47, came from
Ukraine to work as a domestic in the home of an Israeli businessman. The
employment company abroad that contracted her told her she had "nothing
to worry about," with respect to her new boss. However, according to S.,
her employer - a resident of a wealthy Tel Aviv suburb, who works at a
foreign consulate in Israel - withheld most of her salary, took her passport,
did not let her leave the house unless he was with her, and raped her. In
many cases, S. says, her employer's friends who came to dinner or parties
sexually molested her, and one of them also raped her. Today, the police, who are
concluding their investigation of S.'s charges, are arranging a confrontation
between the suspect, who has denied any wrongdoing, and the alleged victim.
According to the suspect's lawyer, Yehoshua Resnick, S. made up the whole
story to avoid deportation. Eight
Israelis charged with trafficking human organs Israeli police have broken up an
organ transplanting ring that persuaded dozens of Israelis to have their
kidneys removed in Ukraine. But, because Israeli law does not explicitly
forbid the trafficking of organs, police may have to release the suspects. It’s not difficult to become an
organ donor. Ads have appeared in both the Russian and Arabic press. Dozens
of people are believed to have been duped into donating their body
organs. We are co-operating with the
Ukrainian justice system. In Ukraine and Israel, there is no law that a
person cannot sell body organs. But what police are charging is that they
were trafficking organs, which is illegal,” said Lizzy Troend, defence
lawyer. Israel allows transplants from
relatives or anonymous donors, but the law forbids anyone to buy organs. - IsUkr Sex slavery:
Israel’s low but thriving trade Rachel Benziman the legal advisor
to the Israeli Women’s network backed up Menuhin’s words by explaining how
difficult it is to find witnesses. “It's not a problem of finding the right
section in the criminal code. It is more a problem of finding the women who
will testify and finding the motivation”, Benziman said, according to
Reuters. What’s more shocking is that,
since 1994, no single woman has testified against any trafficker. Many say
this could be attributed to the fact that although women are the victims
here, trafficked women are the ones usually arrested as illegal workers,
while the men who brought them to Israel, who are usually Israeli, are not. Virtual
pimps may pay the price In December 2000, Zohar set up the
Escort Plus Web site, which featured the details of women who could be
ordered for paid sex. Zohar received a commission on every order from the
site, which was deducted from the fee paid by the clients. The enterprise, however, did not
end there. In 2001 Zohar began traveling to European countries to hire young
women. He housed them in apartments in Israel and "marketed" them
via the Web site. The indictment details how he purchased two Ukrainian women
from a man named Igor, and two Moldavian women from a man named Pasha. U.S
Orthodox rabbis urge Israel to crack down on human trafficking A prominent organization of U.S.
Orthodox rabbis has called on Israeli authorities to step up their fight against
trafficking in women, urging "action to put an end to this shameful
practice by whatever legal means necessary." The statement of the Rabbinical
Council of America, the rabbinic authority of the Orthodox Union and a
partner organization of Israel's Chief Rabbinate, cited Knesset statistics
reporting that "some 3000-5000 women in Israel are currently enslaved,
in violation of Israeli law, as prostitutes as a result of human
trafficking." The RCA stated that it was taking
the position, in part, because "Judaism affirms the right of each
individual to a life of personal freedom, dignity and a duty of national
holiness, particularly regarding sexual conduct" and because "our
Torah stresses no less than 36 times the overarching importance of treating
the stranger with compassion and kindness." The group also noted that Israel's
Declaration of Independence emphasized that the state "will be based on
freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel. Brothel
owner sentenced to five years in jail for human trafficking In 2002 Reizin, who was the owner
of a Haifa brothel, reached an agreement with the owner of an Acre brothel to
sell him a prostitute in return for a part of his establishment's profits.
Reizin later sold the Acre brothel two more women for $10,000. The women were forcibely held and
required to have intercourse with some 25 clients a day. They were paid NIS
50 daily. In November 2002 they managed to escape. Human
trafficking report: Courts are too lenient The Hotline for Migrant Workers
also reported that the courts did not sufficiently exercise the right to extract
compensation from the traffickers for their victims. The court awarded
compensation in only 11 of the 17 trafficking convictions in 2006 for a total
of NIS 314,000, which was NIS 18,500 less than the previous year. The courts also do not make sufficient use
of their powers to fine traffickers or seize their property, the report
stated. National
Geographic Slave to Bias National Geographic’s September 2003 article by Andrew
Cockburn entitled “21st Century Slaves” fails to mention the world’s leading
human-rights and slave-trafficking offender, Sudan, while unfairly
highlighting with a double-page photograph Israel’s relatively insignificant
prostitution rings. Though forced prostitution in
Israel is a grave problem, its scale compared to the extensive abuses
elsewhere hardly merits the attention National Geographic gives it. By
contrast, the omission of Sudan, a country that has enslaved and exploited an
entire people in its southern region, is inexplicable. Unlike the other countries
discussed in the article, with the exception of the United States, Israel has
significant anti-prostitution legislation it enforces Israeli
women being trafficked abroad While police have struggled to
cope with the growing problem of human trafficking through Israel,
human traffickers have begun to ship Israeli women to foreign countries, said
MK Zehava Gal-On Tuesday. Gal-On also said that the country is unprepared for
this new trend. "There has long been an
active ring of people using Israel as a stopping point in the trafficking of
women from foreign countries to other foreign countries… what we are seeing
now is Israeli women themselves being targeted and shipped to other
places," Gal-On said. Analysis:
Israel has stepped up the fight against human trafficking Gershuni's office researches
matters related to human trafficking, represents Israel in international
forums dealing with the problem and is now waiting for the chance to get the
state to prosecute traffickers according to the new legislation. Until now,
there have been a fair number of indictments and convictions in trafficking
for the purposes of prostitution, but none regarding the new forms of slavery
recognized by the recent legislation. "Our first cases must be
extreme, so that they will guarantee convictions," she told the Post, adding
that the courts will have to learn to discern between slavery indictments and
lesser charges of work exploitation. Government
drafts national plan for combating human trafficking The government has drafted a
national plan for combating human trafficking for the purposes of slavery and
coercion, including steps in the areas of enforcement, prevention, and
protection. The purpose of the plan is to
eliminate the phenomena of holding migrant workers in slavery conditions,
through forced labor, coercing them to provide sexual services or collecting
large sums of money from workers. Israel
hosts human trafficking seminar In October, the Knesset (Israeli
parliament) passed a bill banning human trafficking for the purpose of
prostitution and forced labor. “We are talking about an
innovative and revolutionary law, which deals harshly with traffickers of
people and body parts,” said Zahava Gal-on, member of Knesset. “The law will
provide law enforcement officers better tools to combat the phenomenon.” There are an estimated 3,000 women
in Israel, according to Amnesty International, involved in trafficking rings
and Israel wants to help these women, many of whom are victims of extreme
violence. Knesset
passes human trafficking bill In a unanimous vote Tuesday night,
the Knesset approved a law to strengthen and broaden laws against human
trafficking. The bill, which was
drafted by MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) and supported by the government,
increases the time served for involvement in human trafficking to 16-20 years.
It also broadens the definition of trafficking in men, women and children. Gov't,
NGOs still find time to fight against human trafficking Despite the current war on the
home front, government officials and representatives of the US Embassy and
the US State Department took time out of their busy schedules last week to
discuss practical recommendations for how to address sex trafficking and
labor trafficking in the country. 3
arrested on suspicion of human trafficking Tel Aviv Police succeeded in
tracing the steps of the group after spotting a notice published in a Russian
language newspaper advertising employment in Canada for "young,
beautiful girls." Israel
among worst human traffickers Tal Eisenberg, the organization's
legal advisor and coordinator for the center's Fighting Against Trafficking
in Women project told The Jerusalem Post, "It is excellent that the
United Nations has recognized that there is such a problem in Israel. I hope
that we can learn from the report and that the government will now take more
notice of the problem." She said that many countries did not even know
that trafficking takes place within their borders and that Israeli rights
organizations had made great progress in combating the problem. But perhaps in honor of
International Women's Day, let me introduce the woman you'll have such a good
time with tonight. Here's 10 things you never knew about her. 1. Her name is Svetlana. Like most
whores, she's from Eastern Europe. She's 22-years-old. 2. Misha, Svetlana's boss, bought
her for 5,000 dollars from an Egyptian Mafioso who smuggled her across the border
tied to a camel after he and his friends "checked her out" to see
if she was worth the effort. Women
leaders gather in Israel to combat crime of trafficking "The committee set itself a goal to serve as watchdog over the authorities and has compelled the state to act in accordance with international standards," said Gal-On. "Today women are treated as victims of a crime, and as people whose human rights have been breached. Those who traffic and pimp in the bodies of women are treated severely." "There was always violence,
always humiliation" says Miriam [not her real name], who spent 12 years
with a Palestinian-Arab, the last four in his village over the Green Line in
southern Israel. "First he would hit me with his hands. Then he moved on
to using small objects, and finally iron rods and a metal rake. He broke all
of my teeth with the rake and then refused to give me any medical
attention." Art
exhibit takes behind scenes look at Israeli sex trade The distressed expression on the
face of an anonymous woman peering out from behind a barred window in a Tel
Aviv building triggered curator Revital Ben-Asher Peretz to launch her own
private investigation behind the scenes of the Israeli sex trade. With approximately one million
visits to prostitutes each month, the Israeli sex "industry"
generates an estimated billion dollars a year, Gal-On reveals. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared last
month that this "despicable phenomenon completely contradicts Jewish
tradition and the values of dignity."
Yet, despite repeated criticism by the State Department and human rights
organizations, August
16 Proposed as International Day Against Trafficking On August 16, it will be five
years since two trafficking victims from the former Briefing
to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women - June
2005 TRAFFICKING
IN HUMAN BEINGS (ARTICLE 6) - Amnesty International published a report on the trafficking of women
into Trafficking
in Persons for the Purpose of Prostitution: The Israeli Experience [Restricted] THE CHANGE IN ATTITUDE TOWARD TRAFFICKING - With time, as the phenomenon became more prevalent, and its distinguishing characteristics were identified, the attitude changed. Law enforcement agencies began to focus on trafficking as a serious crime distinct from prostitution offenses, and victims began to be viewed first and foremost as victims rather than illegal immigrants. As a consequence, a specific trafficking offense was legislated,12 law enforcement authorities began to initiate investigations, victims were encouraged to testify against traffickers, and courts began to detain traffickers until the conclusion of the criminal trial against them and to mete out more severe sentences. Israel Women
Trafficking Soars Between 3,000 and 5,000 women have been smuggled into Russian
Girls Eager To Work Abroad, Despite The Danger Of Sex Trafficking It is really difficult for such
girls to escape when they reach Interior
Minister to Expel 15 Prostitutes Who Testified According to the charge
sheet against her procurers, she was sold at a Tel Aviv parking lot to the
owner of an escort agency, where she worked without being paid, ostensibly to
pay for her travel expenses. The young
woman cooperated fully with the police and the prosecution, and provided
evidence concerning several suspects. As a result, she has received threats
and is scared to return to the Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study 2005 Thousands of foreign women have been smuggled into Israel
and sold into prostitution 2004 Hotline for Migrant Workers in 2004 Jewish Wives Are Arab Husbands' Prey 2004 6000
Jewish Israeli women marry Arab men each year, unknowingly entering into a
trap 2004 “There
was always violence, always humiliation" 2004 A
trap of torture - When Israeli Women Marry Arab Men 2004 Response to U.S. State Dept criticism of 2004 4th annual report on trafficking in women and prostitution
in 2004 Over 1,000 minors around the country are involved in prostitution 2004 Prostitution in the Land of the Maccabees: Trafficking in
Women in 2004 3,000 prostitutes in 2004 [DOC] Actual facts on the Trafficking in
Persons for the purpose of prostitution in 2004 Women bought & sold into indentured servitude of the
sex industry 2004 Women As
Commodities: Trafficking in Women in Israel 2003 2004 Fighting the flesh trade By Marion Marrache 2002 Last year, Israel made an extraordinary effort to clean up
the problem of trafficking 2002 3,000 women, mainly from former Soviet
Union, sold each year into Israel's sex industry 2000 Dead women came from 1998 Traffickers' New Cargo: Naive Slavic women 1996 16-year old European girl deported from All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Israel Street Children in [Israel] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Israel] [other countries]