A Decade of Fighting Human Trafficking in Israel: Achievements, Challenges, Insights
1
State of Israel
Ministry of Justice
17 May 2013, Vienna
A Decade of Fighting Human Trafficking in Israel:
Achievements, Challenges, Insights
Good morning.
I wish to thank OSCE for the invitation, and for its ongoing collaboration with the State of Israel in the fight against human trafficking. I look forward to continuing this collaboration – in the very near future in Haifa, in a seminar for judges, and in other projects.
I also want to thank the Swiss delegation for the idea to bring an Israeli speaker to this meeting. I was very happy to accept the invitation.
I am especially happy to participate in a discussion which focuses on the Mediterranean region, and I welcome the opportunity to meet my Egyptian, Jordanian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian colleagues.We are neighbors.We probably share similar challenges and concerns in the area of human trafficking. Therefore, we need to meet, exchange information and learn from each other's experiences. I sincerely hope that this is only the beginning of a long and productive conversation.
In this presentation I will give you a general overview of human trafficking in Israel, following a decade of a very determined action by the government, the Knesset (our parliament) and NGOs. I will highlight our achievements, and especially the dramatic decrease in trafficking in women for sexual exploitation – from thousands of women trafficked to Israel a decade ago, to the current situation in which there are hardly any such cases.I will then speak about some challenges that still remain, especially in the realm of labour trafficking. Finally, I will mention areas in which I think we would benefit from working jointly with OSCE and Mediterranean countries.
The first pattern of human trafficking that we have seen in Israel was trafficking in women for sexual exploitation. Starting in the mid 1990s, until a few years ago, many young women from the former Soviet Union (Russia, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan) were brought to Israel and forced into prostitution, under extremely harsh conditions.They suffered from brutality and humiliation; they were locked in, threatened, raped; their passports were taken away; they were forced to "serve" a very large number of men everyday, seven days a week; they were not paid for their "services". Their autonomy and human dignity were denied.They were treated as sex slaves.
In 2003, exactly 10 years ago, the police had estimated that 3000 women were trafficked to Israel – on that year alone. NGOs claimed that the numbers were much higher.
In 2010, not a single victim was identified. Since 2011 we have only seen very few cases, and they are significantly less severe than what I had just described. (Women are brought to Israel in order to be in prostitution, but there is no violence, there are no threats, the women do get paid, they have their passports with them, and they may leave the apartments in which they reside. We still regard these cases as trafficking in women, but this is not the brutal picture of the past).
How did that change happen? How did we move from thousands of victims per year to almost zero? The answer lies in a combination of many factors. In addition to international pressure (mainly through the U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report), and public awareness campaigns by NGOs, the government has taken the following steps:
-A comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation.
-National Plans to fight human trafficking.
-The appointment of a National Coordinator of the fight against human trafficking
-The appointment of a Directors General Committee focused on the fight against human trafficking.
-Strong enforcement actions by the police – including collaborations with police units in countries of origin such as Russia and Ukraine, and the establishment of a special police unit of Russian speaking officers in the Tel Aviv District, focused on fighting trafficking
-Many court decisions denouncing human trafficking, and increasingly high penalties for the traffickers. Let me quote former Chief Justice Dorit Beinish from the Israel Supreme Court:
"Gone are the dark days, in which one person could be viewed as the property of another person. A human being is born free, and his right to liberty is a fundamental human right".(Criminal Appeal 11196/02 Michael Prudental v. The State of Israel).
Statements of this kind repeat in many other court decisions. Judges speak very clearly against modern slavery.
-There are special visas for trafficking victims – visas which allow them to work in Israel.
-There are shelters for trafficking victims. The victims are not required to co-operate with the police in order to be admitted to the shelters. Protection is given also to victims who were trafficked and enslaved outside of Israel.
-Trafficking victims are entitled to free legal aid, in civil, administrative and labour law proceedings.
I would like to highlight the crucial role of NGOs in the fight against human trafficking in Israel: in raising awareness, identifying victims and assisting them, filing petitions to the High Court of Justice and publishing important reports. The government recognizes this, and on May 2012 we held a special seminar on the importance of working with NGOs in the area of fighting human trafficking (with the assistance and participation of OSCE).
Before I move on to talk about other patterns of trafficking, I must say that despite the success in almost completely eliminating sex trafficking, we know that we must remain alert, as this phenomenon can very quickly arise again. It is important not to feel that our work is done. As some of you may know, Last year, Israel was ranked, for the first time, in the "Tier 1" category in the U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report. We want to stay there, and we know that in order to stay there we must continue to work hard.
I will now move to discuss the issue of labour trafficking. This is a different phenomenon. The victims are usually migrant workers who come to Israel legally, with a work permit, to work in agriculture, construction or home caring.Many of these workers come from South East Asian countries. They are not "bought" or "sold" – like the victims of sex trafficking were – but the way they are employed, the way they are treated by their employers, may be regarded as slavery or forced labour. They are treated as objects, as work machines, and not as humans.
It must be emphasized that this is not a very common phenomenon in Israel. We are not talking about thousands or even hundreds of victims. In fact, very few cases reach the courts. And the question we must ask is – Why? Why few cases? Is it because there really aren't many such cases of severe abuse?Or, is it because cases are not identified?Or is it because a particular set of facts is regarded by law enforcement officials as a violation of labour laws, and not as modern slavery?
The government has done a lot in order toprevent cases of labour trafficking, and to identify and treat existing cases. For example:
-There are efforts to prevent exploitation by informing workers about their rights before they start working.
-There is a move towards drafting and signing bilateral agreements between Israel and source countries of migrant workers, in order to better protect the rights of the workers. For example, there is such an agreement between Israel and Thailand, regarding hiring Thai workers to work in agriculture in Israel.
- There are increased enforcement efforts by labour inspectors who visit worksites.
-There are many training sessions with a focus on victim identification (to the police, the immigration authority, detention facilities, medical staff, social workers, NGOs and more).
-The office of the National Coordinator has created a unique project dealing with cultural aspects: to try to explain whether a person does not complain about abuse, or does not leave an abusive employer, because of his or her cultural background.
Yet, and despite these important efforts, I believe that more learning and more thinking is required, in order to make sure that we do identify all cases of labour trafficking.Especially, the area of domestic work needs more attention.If women (and in this area the victims are mostly women) are inside homes, and are not allowed to leave those homes, how do we - the society - know what's going on inside? We must make sure that we find ways to reach those workers. I will add that last year there were two cases of severe exploitation of domestic workers in houses of foreign diplomats. In dealing with those cases, we found extremely useful the study done by OSCE on this subject.
It should also be mentioned that undocumented migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan, who are mostly in Tel Aviv, without work and with much uncertainty about their future, may be very vulnerable to exploitation. We must be aware of that, try to prevent it from happening, and be able to identify and treat cases of exploitation if they occur.
In addition to sex and labour trafficking, we have also had a few cases of suspicions of trafficking for the purpose of organ removal, including one case with a conviction.
After having presented a general picture of human trafficking in Israel, I will now focus on where we can further collaborate with OSCE and with our Mediterranean colleagues.
I will start with the experience of our shelters for trafficking victims. In my intervention in the Rome conference on February 8th 2013, I presented a "good practice" from our shelter, which is the project of employment placement for victims of slavery and forced labour.These people were exploited on agricultural farms and on other work sites. After a period of recovery and rehabilitation in the shelter, they usually want to return to work in order to be able to send money to their families in their home countries. The shelter staff has created a pool of "good employers", who are willing to employ trafficking victims. While they are working there, the victims remain in close contact with the shelter staff, who visits the workers in their new working places, and makes sure that they are not exploited again.I mentioned, in Rome, that this program is a good practice not only as a tool of protectionof victims, but also as a prevention measure – once the victims, who have previously been exploited, start working for a "good employer", and receive descent working and living conditions, they realize that they have rights, that they deserve to be treated with respect, that they are even entitled to make requests, and that they do not have to agree to every demand of the employer. This is an important process of empowerment, and it makes it less likely that these people will be exploited again.
In addition to what I said in Rome, I would like to stress that in several years of a very intensive work, our shelter has gained a lot of experience in the area of treating trafficking victims, both men and women, from various countries (Moldova, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and many more), from different cultures, who speak different languages, with a diversity of narratives about trauma and abuse, and with various needs in terms of treatment, healing and rehabilitation.
The staff of the shelter is multicultural and speaks many different languages.There are creative and dynamic programs of therapy, recreation and safe return.The treatment is specific to every individual victim and is tailored to his or her size.The voice and the wishes of the victims themselves are a crucial element of these rehabilitation programs.This is the place where humanity is being restored to people who had been treated as objects. And it is done with much thought and sensitivity.
The experience and expertise of our shelter has been recognized by many, and the staff gives workshops to professionals from other countries. For example, last year, two workers of the shelter gave a workshop in Uzbekistan, in the Russian language, to people who treat trafficking victims (with IOM).
We would be most willing to share this experience and to exchange ideas with representatives of similar shelters in other countries; to discuss similar challenges, such as: how to deal with the issue of secondary trauma, for those who treat traumatized victims? How to deal with cultural or religious tensions between different populations in the shelter? How to explain to a woman, sometimes for the first time in her life, that she is entitled to say NO? I encourage you to offer study visits, joint seminars, video conferences and other methods of communication and mutual learning with the Israeli shelter.
As I have tried to show, many tools are being used in the fight against human trafficking in Israel. To these I can add the religious voice: there have been a few very inspiring initiatives to involve religious leaders in Israel, and indeed important religious leaders – of Islam, Christianity and Judaism – have issued joint statements against modern slavery, and a call to end it. I think that such statements are particularly forceful when they come out of the "Holy Land", which is Holy to so many people around the word.
One area in which we have hardly do anything is the area of engaging the private sectorin the fight against trafficking. This is an area that we would very much like to promote. We recognize the importance of involving the business sector, employers and consumers in order to reduce the demand for cheap labour and cheap products, a demand which fosters human trafficking. Dr. Maria Grazia Giammarinaro has stressed this issue in her speech in Rome, and in several other occasions.
In my office we have drafted a very preliminary paper with some proposals, for example about involving the hotel industryand travel agencies in the efforts to eliminate sex trafficking. In preparing these proposals, we have learned a great deal from the OSCE paper analyzing the Business Model for Trafficking.
There are several law professors in Israel who specialize in corporate responsibility and we are thinking about creating a seminar with them – focusing on corporate responsibility and human trafficking.
But, these are only initial ideas. In order to move forward and do something more coherent and focused, led by the government, we would welcome the assistance and expertise of OSCE. I will be happy to discuss these ideas in more detail.
I thank you for your attention, and look forward to our discussion.
Dr. Merav Shmueli, Adv.,
Acting Anti-Trafficking Coordinator
Ministry of Justice, Israel
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