Palestine News Network

More Than 10,000 Women Trafficked in Israel in Last Decade

28.10.10 - 13:47

PNN – Israeli women’s rights lawyer Ori Kadar said in the past ten years more than 10,000 women have been brought to Israel as part of “new slave trade.” Kadar began campaigning to call attention to the phenomenon after he was shocked to see a stall inside a crowded market in Tel Aviv filled not with expensive clothes or movies, but with women for sale. He couldn’t believe the sight of young women standing like any other product, each carrying information about their age, height, weight, and “country of origin.” Kadar said he was investigating the trade and pressuring the Israeli Ministry of Justice to implement criminal sanctions against the men who obtain the services in question. “This legislation is an important step in the fight against women trafficking,” he said. “Legislation against customers will reduce the demand for prostitution and thus reduce profits for the criminal organization. This will limit the trafficking.” He noted that the legislation was being drafted along the lines of the Swedish model, which accomplished the same ends of reducing demand. Kadar said that trafficked women faced assault, rape, forced starvation, and between 15 and 30 sex acts a day, every day of the year. According to a human-trafficking report issued by the U.S. State Department, Israel is still a major smuggling destination in the sex and forced labor trades. Some criminal organizations still smuggle women from countries of the former Soviet Union and China to Israel through its Egyptian border. A report prepared by the Parliamentary Investigative Committee chief and Knesset Minister Zahafa Ja’alun said that the size of the trafficking in Israel exceeded nearly a billion shekels (about $235 million) in one year. In past years, between 3000 and 5000 women have been smuggled into Israel for sex work, each sold for between $1000 and $10,000. The report found there were more than 10,000 female sex workers working in about 400 brothels in all corners of Israel. Most were sold for between $8,000 and $10,000, worked seven days a week and 14 to 18 hours a day, and were paid 120 shekels ($35) for an hour with each customer—of which $7 went to the “trader.” The trade flourished in Israel for many years, especially after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the emigration of many former Soviet subjects to Israel. Leaving hardship, many Russian women believed they could find solutions in Israeli society. The trade turned global with different partners and divided profits, and Israel became a “second-class” state to the U.S. State Department. The UN called it a “major point in the [sex] trade.” The global slave trade makes about $9 billion a year, with wealthy nations seeing a rise in “imported” women. But the phenomenon is not limited to women. Male migrant workers, often from China, Romania, Turkey, Thailand, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and India, come legally to Israel for work in construction, agriculture, or health services. But they are often forced into work after their passports are stolen—they are kept in one place, denied payment, threatened, and beaten.  These workers can be sold as slaves for between $1000 and $10,000. In related news, the Israeli women’s group Midot held a press conference in which it was revealed that more than 200,000 Israeli women had been sexually assaulted, with only a quarter of them reported the assaults to the police. The group explained that 9,000 of these assaults happened in the past year, with only a fifth of the survivors going to the police.