by havanagila » Tue Feb 21, 2006 3:26 pm
Thanks 7thson, this is indeed a problem in Israel, and perhaps only int'l pressure *and the need to save face from such criticism will instigate some changes here. <br>However,the practice seems older than this. New research points to extensive sex trade within the Ashkenazi Jewish community as early as the mid 19th century. more so, the early immigrants to Palestine included a fairly significant group of traders and their slaves, to the point that it was recorded in official minutes, in meetings of the leaders of the community. mostly, the girls were lured from poor very religious families to come along with the trader, to do a housekeeping job far away (au paere of the present) and were kidnapped and sold to brothels all over the world, inclucing the arab peninsual and alexandria. <br>The novelty of the modern sex trade in Israel is that most of the workers are smuggled in from eastern Europe, either under false papers or totally without papers (via Sinai desert and rafiach transit point near gaza). This was DENIED for years, until international pressure was too heavy (1. state department annual reports repeatedly placed Israel high up int the sex trade and human trafficiking rating 2/ EU commission demanded some legal amendments to the laws here under some joint working group.). After that, and very gradually, police started doing their work, BUT in order to secure guilty verdicts they incarcerated the girls *for immigration violations, untill they testified. this was changed, under the law only recently. In fact, there is a publicized high profile pro bono lawsuit pending against the state, for 'false imprisonment'. By two slaves. <br>Now, the police is required under the law to make a speedy deposition, while the girls are placed in special sex slave shelters. In one case, reported last month, a woman-mole made it into the shelter, in order to threaten the girls, but she was caught. However, to date she refuses to testify against the person who sent her there. (rightly so). Mind you, there is still no witness protection laws in Israel. This is being set up only now, and will not be operational for a year at least. <br>---<br>I have mentioned several times on this board that the image of women having a ball in Israel, is misleading. we are still bound by ancient rabbinical laws/courts, pertaining to marriage/divorce (whereby a woman cannot testify, and certainly there are no women on the judicial bench, and the law itself clearly disparages women); we are all subject to machoism, coming from the militarized society, and recently the western/capitalist "man eat man" culture has made everything much worse for women. the famous socialist safety network, we prided in, is GONE here. practically no social rights. this leads to increase in sex trade.<br>--<br> BUT...and that's a big BUT. after seeing faraway lands who are considered evolved, like North america...this is not what it looks like. certainly, since those countries feed on third world resources - the western women have more freedoms and power. but basically, if it weren't for this economical advantage, I am not sure women would fare better. <br> <p></p><i></i>
