Government Program Aims to End Sex Trafficking

October 9, 2007

The Israeli government has formulated a comprehensive new program to eliminate the trafficking of women to Israel. The initiative, which should be implemented during 2008, will involve more rigorous control of the country's borders, harsher punishments for traffickers and better treatment for the victims of trafficking.

According to Adi Willinger, the Hotline for Migrant Workers in Israel Field Coordinator for Trafficking in Women, this is the latest in a series of achievements that have drastically reduced the level of trafficking to Israel. Willinger served as a consultant on the various government committees that formulated the new plan.  The NIF family, including SHATIL's Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, has been a dominant force in this campaign.

Back in 2000, Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department both cited Israel as one of the world's worst offenders for trafficking of women. But the situation was transformed following new legislation in 2001, which specifically outlaws the trafficking of people. An amendment to the law in 2003 set out a minimum penalty of 30 months imprisonment for individuals convicted of trafficking.   Further, an amendment in 2006 stipulates that victims of trafficking must be compensated by those found guilty of exploiting them.

Police estimate that approximately 3,000 female victims of sexual trafficking were brought into Israel annually until 2003; that number has now been reduced to just several hundred.

"The proposed government plan is very welcome," said Willinger. "But I hope that as well as stopping the trafficking, the thousands of victims already in Israel will be given proper health and psychological treatment and compensation so that they can rehabilitate their lives."

Hotline for Migrant Workers helped formulate the new legislation and has successfully pressed for more government assistance to the victims of trafficking. As a result, the government has set up shelters for victims and granted temporary visas for those women waiting to testify in court cases against the traffickers who brought them to Israel. In addition, Hotline gives legal and financial assistance to dozens of victims such as Alexandra (whose name has been changed), a particularly harrowing example of the thousands of women in Israel scarred by their experiences.

The Story of Alexandra: In 2001, Alexandra, then 30 and a dancer by profession, responded to an ad in her native Ukraine for dancers in Tel Aviv. She was smuggled into Israel from Egypt via the Sinai and understood her mistake when she was sold to a pimp in Tel Aviv.  After working as a prostitute for four years, she was arrested in 2005 and held at the Neve Tirzah Prison. Medical tests showed that she had been infected with AIDS, Tuberculosis and Hepatitis C.

Hotline for Migrant Workers took up her case after the prison service refused to fund her medical treatment because she is not an Israeli citizen. Hotline petitioned the Supreme Court, which recently issued a preliminary ruling compelling the government to provide initial tests and treatment while a cost estimate for Alexandra's full treatment is submitted. The case is an important precedent for dozens of women in a similar predicament.