March 15, 2006

Acting Prime Minister Olmert signs ATZUM’s Manifesto against Human Trafficking in Israel with ATZUM’s Task Force against Human Trafficking attending.

The Jewish Week: February 17, 2006

It is no secret that human trafficking — a discreet way to describe a horrific form of sexual slavery – is an increasingly worrisome problem in coun all over the world. That includes Israel, where it is big business, estimated at between $500 million and $ 1 billion a year.

It is also no secret that while a number of Jewish organizations in this country are concerned about the problem and some have lobbied Israeli officials privately about it, most are unwilling to speak out publicly for fear of embarrassing the Jewish state. We understand that apprehension, but as one official of Atzum, an organization promoting social justice in Israel, told us this week, “It is better to wash your dirty linen in public than to wear it.”

The story behind the human trafficking is a tragic one. Most of the women are between 18 and 30, from the Eastern countries of the former Soviet Union. Some are orphans, and all are living in great poverty. They are recruited through false advertis ing, led to believe they will earn a good income as nannies, waitresses or dancers. Instead, they are flown to Egypt, trucked to the Israel-Egypt border (mainly by Bedouin tribesmen), sold in Israel at human auctions for the best price, then forced into prostitution.

At any given time, an estimated 3,000 of these young women are required to have sex with clients 10 to 20 times a day, every day. They are beaten, raped and sometimes starved by their captors, then flown home after a year or so, once they are no longer physically or mentally able to be of any use to those who control them.

While prostitution is legal in Israel, human trafficking is illegal because the women are not paid and are held against their will. Atzum. which has a task force on human trafficking, estimates that 80 percent of the women in the sex industry in Israel are victims of human trafficking, and that Israeli men and foreign workers make one million “visits” a month to the country’s 450 brothels. Some of those profiting from these women are Jews, some are Israeli Arabs and some are Russians, Jewish and non-Jewish.

According to the annual State Department report on human rights, Israel has improved its standing from Level 3, the worst, to Level 2, where it is now categorized (along with most countries) as making ef relieve the still-serious problem. But it could and should be doing more. One option is to close the border with Egypt or enforce the border patrol, making transportation of these young women into Israel far more difficult. Another is to crack down on organized crime, which is involved with and profit from the human trafficking.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the um group of Jewish community relations organizations, will take up the issue of global human trafficking at its plenum, Feb. 25-28 in Washington. But when it comes to Israel, American Jews can do their part by lobbying Israeli officials to improve the government’s policies and increase public awareness of this tragic situation. Our history, tradition and val have taught us that every life is precious, created in the image of God. We must speak out against this cruel form of slavery that is flourishing today in the Jewish state.

The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 12, 2006

‘Three thousand women in Israel: raped, beaten, trafficked,” the caption reads. “Is aid on the way?” As images of forlorn-looking women flash on the screen, the 30-second television spot praises Israel’s humanitarian efforts worldwide – including the rescue and support of southeast-Asian tsunami victims and Pakistani earthquake survivors. Why then, the message implies, would Israel neglect to prevent an epidemic of violence and despair affecting women within its own borders?

Called “Tifereth Israel,” the clip was the brainchild of student filmmakers Assaf Israel, Gil Hod, Liam Sharf, Navah Oren and Shikma Erdman. It was selected for broadcast throughout Israel to raise awareness about the scourge of human trafficking.

The campaign was initiated by the Jerusalem-based Task Force on Human Trafficking (TFHT) – a project of the non-profit ATZUM, founded by Rabbi Levi Lauer, and the law firm of Kabiri-Nevo-Keidar – which joined forces with the two largest broadcasting schools in Israel, ACC and Jump Cut in Tel Aviv. Together, they commissioned students to create 17 public awareness campaigns.

These advertisements were screened at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque in early December, at an event so packed there was standing-room only. The screening was also a competition: Just one of the commercials would be chosen to air on national television. Milling about after the screening, it was clear the favored clip was “Tifereth Israel.” The clip is scheduled to screen shortly on Keshet and Reshet television networks, both of which donated the airtime.

Tamar Yaron, the founder and director of the Jump Cut broadcast school, was intrigued by the project as a way of using her program as a “platform for contributing to society.”

When Tirtsa Granot, the director of the ACC school, came to her a year ago after being approached by her old friend Roni Aloni of the TFHT, the women agreed the campaign was an opportunity for both her students and for Israel as a whole.

“We like to give students something that will be meaningful both for their own growth and for society,” she says. “The goal of ads is to influence. I want to see the day when the exploitation of women is not legitimate here.”

Nava Oren, a 28-year-old student at Jump Cut, was part of the team that created the winning clip.

“We wanted to show that it is the government’s responsibility to help the way they have helped with other human plights. The government needs to do more on this,” she says.

“We wanted to be very clear that sex trafficking is something different than prostitution. It is slavery,” Oren added.

Tamar Adelstein, coordinator for the Coalition Against the Trafficking of Women, thinks the winning clip is a powerful statement. Still, she worries that the ad campaign may not address the core obstacle: “I think that the main problem of women trading is that it has a demand. And where there is that demand, there will be a supply.

“I think that the men in Israel need to be educated that what they are doing is damaging,” says Adelstein. Her concern is not simply that Israel chooses to ignore the crisis – it’s that too many people don’t think it’s a problem at all. According to pollster Mina Tzemach, 65 percent of Israeli men do not see the trafficking of women as a human-rights violation.

Prior to 1990, Israel had no known involvement with the sex trafficking business, and prostitution activity was relatively low. Since that time, activists estimate that 3,000 girls and young women have been shipped each year from the former Soviet Union.

Today, women in 80% of Israel’s brothels are victims of sex trafficking, according to the Hotline for Migrant Workers. While Israeli men make an estimated 1,000,000 visits to these brothels monthly, the Israeli government did little to respond to the issue throughout the 1990s – leading the US State Department to rank Israel among the worst countries worldwide in a 2001 report on global trafficking.

Since that time, Israel has begun investigating into and taking some action on this issue. But, for many activists, the efforts simply aren’t enough.

IN SOUTH Tel Aviv, as in other parts of the country, men in search of illicit sex need only look for one of the ubiquitous pyramid-shaped icons that mark the entrances to brothels.

“What more obvious lead to a crime scene do the police need?” challenges Nomi Levinkron, a leading expert on the subject of sex trafficking in Israel and head of the legal department of the Hotline for Migrant Workers.

Just up the street from the downtown shouk, Levinkron stops and points at a dark room with bars on the window, on the top floor of a yellowing building.

“I remember one time when I walked past this building and looked up at the window,” she recalls. “A girl was standing there, peering out. She had this haunting sadness in her eyes. She was literally trapped. I will never forget the expression on her face – total despair.”

Levinkron pauses before passing the butcher shop next door – “One butcher next to another,” she says.

Much of the debate in Israel centers around the women’s choice in entering the sex trade. If prostitution isn’t a crime in Israel, and many of the women choose to come of their own volition, why should Israelis be concerned?

“The women simply don’t understand the situation,” explains Yasmin Keshet, a legal advocate for victims of sex trafficking. “They don’t realize they are being taken into slavery. They are led to believe that they will work as prostitutes for a certain amount of time, make good money to support their families, then return back home. There is no way for them to imagine what really happens in the end. It is worlds away from what is described to them in the beginning.” Victims, activists allege, can endure countless beatings and rapes each day, as well as captivity and sometimes even death.

“It’s a throwback,” Keshet says, “to the slave trades of America, the Middle Ages, and ancient Greece – things we as a society thought we had moved beyond. These very things are happening today – right here in this country.”

While some trafficked girls and women are abducted, others agree to prostitution as a means of financial rescue.

“The former Soviet Union is in horrible economic shape,” Levinkron explains. “When women are making the equivalent of about 100 NIS a month there, 4,000 NIS a month seems worth prostitution.”

Not only do the women never see a shekel of the money they are promised, but they get trapped in a nightmare they never could have imagined.

Numerous activists assert that classic attitudes towards prostitution – specifically, criminalizing the woman – exacerbate the nightmare facing sex trafficking victims.

“Authorities will often say, ‘Oh, she’s a prostitute. She chose it, so this is what she deserves,’” says Keshet. For this reason, “interrogations often are done improperly, and authorities frequently treat the women in humiliating ways.”

According to Ayelet Lachmi, an activist with Amnesty International and the Coalition to Stop Sex Trafficking, “The government treats the women as illegal aliens who are criminals – punishing them far more severely than the pimps who bring them here,” she says. “Israel thinks of sex trafficking victims as ‘foreign workers,’ which is why they are treated differently. The government thinks it can do anything it wants with them.”

Many times, Keshet believes, trafficking victims are forced to testify against their pimps.

“Victim testimonies are the only way to collect evidence against and prosecute these criminals,” Keshet explains. “Their testimony helps the state a lot, but it’s at a very high risk to the victims. Associates of these pimps threaten these women and their families back home. That’s why the shelter [for sex trafficking victims] was founded – to protect these women until they testify.”

Though the shelter is safe, Keshet says, “it is closed like a prison.” As soon as victims have finished testifying, she continues, “the women are deported from the country. The deportation is legal, because the Ministry of Interior Affairs decides this. That’s where I come into the picture: I represent them against the ministry. I say, ‘Look, these women helped the state, give them at least a year to rehabilitate.’”

Police investigator Raanan Caspi of the National Investigation Office stresses that compelling women to testify is the only way to effectively work on their behalf.

“Our goal is to arrest as many of the pimps as possible,” he explains. “When we find the victims, our top priority is to convince the woman to testify, because it is the only way to catch the perpetrators involved in buying, selling and transporting the victims.”

Caspi stresses that all women are given access to services of some kind.

“If she is prepared to testify,” he says, “we transfer her to a safehouse. If she’s not sure, we transfer her to a different facility where she has time to think about whether she wants to cooperate.”

He estimates that 90% of the women eventually agree to testify.

The police portray a very different assessment of the victims’ future prospects in Israel than do most activists. Of the women living in shelters under government protection, Caspi says, 60% begin working “normal jobs” in Israel. They are also given access to lawyers and a small stipend from the government, according to Caspi.

“If they don’t want to [cooperate] they still can have services, but only for two or three weeks and then they are returned to their country of origin.” Women who don’t want to testify against their pimps don’t deserve to stay because they have chosen not to “be part of the system,” the police say.

“The Israeli government is once again trying to downplay one of the most atrocious human rights violations of our time,” responds Yedida Wolfe, Director of Advocacy at TFHT.

The police, however, say the law-enforcement challenges are much harder than the activists admit.

“The victims are often working in private houses,” Caspi says. “The women working in brothels are now mostly Israeli women.” According to the police, “the percentage of Israeli women is up, and the number of trafficked women is down.”

Wolfe, though, thinks the government simply isn’t trying hard enough.

“The official directive of the state attorney has been and remains that the police should only investigate the crime of pimping in extraordinary circumstances. Apparently, the state still does not view this crime worthy of police attention or government resources.”

Despite assurances given by the state attorney in response to a petition filed by TFHT in the High Court this year, there has been no change as of yet.

“Instead of closing down brothels, the police simply raid them in search of illegal aliens,” Wolfe alleges.

“These women, trafficking victims, have been cruelly exploited by their pimps and traffickers who routinely abuse, rape and even starve them,” she continues. “After a police raid, the women are transferred to a detention center – which is much like a prison – pending deportation from the country.”

Until Israeli government officials and citizens more closely examine the complexity and severity of the sex slave trade, Wolfe believes, the battle will continue – and young women will pay the price.

LOOLWA KAZOOM

The Jerusalem Report, December 26, 2005

Israel’s legislature and judiciary have both moved to toughen up the country’s policy on trafficking in human beings. In the Knesset, a sweeping bill to widen the definition of trafficking passed a preliminary vote in mid- November. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has extracted a pledge from State Attorney Eran Shendar to boost enforcement of the existing law against pimping. And in early December, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said he could not rule out amendth the law to charge the clients of trafficked women.

Israel criminalized trafficking in women for purposes of prostitution five years ago in response to police assessments of a thriving sex trade — earning organized-crime rings up to $1 billion a year — fueled by the smuggling of women, mostly from the Former Soviet Union, over Israel’s porous border with Egypt. The new bill expands the definition of criminal action to include trafficking in human beings for purposes including forced labor, extraction of bodily organs, the birth of an infant to be sold for adoption, and sexual offenses. Written to bring Israeli law in line with updates to two U.N. treaties on which Israel is a signatory — the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Convention on the Rights of the Child — the bill sets prison sentences of up to 16 years on traffickers, or 20 years if the victim is a minor, and allows confiscating property related to their crimes.

On the judicial track, the Supreme Court forced the state prosecution to set a date when it would begin taking a tougher line against pimping and trafficking. A year ago, summoned before the Knesset Sub-committee on Trafficking in Women to explain his office’s laxity in prosecuting pimps and other traffickers, Shendar promised a more aggressive policy once a bill allowing the police to close down brothels was passed. The law passed in March; when the policy change failed to materialize, an. NGO called AZTUM/Justice Works petitioned the Supreme Court to force the state attomey to honor his pledge. And pressed by the justices during a November 30 hearing, the prosecution undertook to begin applying that law within 60 days.

“The court has sent the state attorney a clear message that there’s no excuse for ignoring such appalling exploitation,” says Yedida Wolfe, a lawyer with the Task Force on Human Trafficking (TFHT), a joint endeavor of ATZUM/Justice Works and the Kabiri-NevoKeidar law firm, which does pro-bono work for NGOs engaged in public causes. The court’s action, she adds, means that “beginning in February the authorities should finally be directed to investigate and prosecute pimps.”

The TFHT is also pressing for more stringent measures along the Egyptian border, through which 99 percent of trafficked women — up to 3,000 a year, according to army estimates — are still being smuggled into Israel. Although the police claim to have made great strides in shutting off this area, “when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz visited the border at the end of November;’ says Levi Lauer, the director of ATZUM/Justice Works, “they declared that it would cost 3 billion shekels [$645 million] and take three years to seal it hermetically.”

INA FRIEDMAN