Trafficking of human beings is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people for the purpose of exploitation. Trafficking involves a process of using illicit means such as threat, use of force, or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception or abuse.
The worst and most popular form of trafficking is the sex trade that is growing widely in Israel, home to more than 10,000 trafficked women and at least 280 brothels in Tel Aviv alone, according to Canadian journalist and social activist Victor Malarek.
During the promotion of Malarek’s new book, he discussed how Third World and Eastern women as young as 12 are tricked into the sex trade by promises of wealth and prosperity in the west, as well as Israel.
"Newspaper ads from modeling and employment agencies promise exciting jobs, but the women are duped," Malarek told the Jewish Tribune. "They must submit, or they are raped, beaten and tortured. There are between 5,000 and 10,000 trafficked women in Israel and more than 280 brothels in Tel Aviv alone. It is a human rights issue the Jewish community knows about. They have a voice and they must use it."
Even though the United Nations (UN) is an organization that views human trafficking as one of the most terrible crimes in the world, according to Malarek, many young girls were trafficked in Kosovo to service troops sent by the UN.
The thriving business that generates more than 12 billion dollars a year, forces more than 800,000 women annually into choosing between prostitution and death. That’s not all!! According to UNICEF, around 1.7 billion children are conned annually with a decrease in the age of victims every year.
"There is both national and international indifference," said Malarek. "The public looks at the victims with apathy or scorn and foreign women are not the priority of most governments. Governments are complacent because the sex industry brings in money."
With the promise of a job and better economic and social conditions, women are driven to slavery and sold in auctions that take place in nightclubs and bars. Afterwards they are pimped, beaten and isolated and that’s not the worst of it; buyers are notified that they become a part of their inheritance to their children after them.
Amnesty International accused the Israeli police and government of ignoring the matter and knowing the names and places where such auctions take place. However, the police denies that there is anything they can do: “They (trafficked women) are very much afraid to come to the police and complain, so the police really can't do anything," said police spokeswoman Linda Menuhin. "Israel has no law against trafficking people, and no law against prostitution."
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.
The non-profit Israel Women's Network estimates that 70% of prostituted women in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial center, come from the former Soviet republics, and that about 1,000 women are brought into Israel illegally each year.
According to the Jerusalem Post, human traffickers are one of the highest paid in any business earning between USD 50,000 to USD 100,000 a year for each sold woman.
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.
In 2000, the UN adopted the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, also called the Palermo Convention and one of its two Palermo protocols was Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children. This protocol covers defining the crime of trafficking in human beings; essentially, trafficking consists of actions in which offenders gain control of victims by coercive or deceptive means or by exploiting relationships, like those between parents and children, in which one party has relatively little power or influence and is therefore vulnerable to trafficking among many other issues.
One might find it hard to believe that even though the debate is currently covering Israel, trafficking is spread worldwide. According to the BBC, a United Nations official has described the trafficking of women and children across Asia as "the largest slave trade in history". However, Asian women in China and other countries are luckier with the laws against such crimes. It’s reported that 1.5 million prostitutes and male buyers were arrested between 1991 and 1995.
Meanwhile, the Independent reported in 2007 that more than 5,000 children are forced to work as sex slaves in the UK, while, children as young as 11 are enslaved in prostitution in Bradford. Moreover, the report said 50% of women in prostitution have been coerced into the sex industry while under the age of consent.
Many women and children who have become the victims of such expanding industries hope that organizations and authorities would view them as more than a case that requires discussion.
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