Recently I attended an event sponsored by ATZUM, an acronym for “Avodat Tzedaka U’Mishpat” – righteous work leads to justice. Knesset member Zehava Galon of Meretz was honored for her work in confronting those who traffic in women.

Atzum established a task force against human trafficking in women. From its website: “Israel is a destination country for human trafficking. Women and children are brought into the country every year to be exploited as modern day slaves. Rates of human trafficking in Israel are alarmingly high. Nearly all of the trafficking victims in Israel come from the former Soviet Union. Most victims enter the country through Israel’s border with Egypt. Once in Israel, victims are often sold and resold to pimps and brothel owners who force them to work in slave-like conditions. At every stage in the process, the victims are abused and exploited, often suffering severe beatings, rape and even starvation. Israel has made limited progress in the fight against human trafficking, but more can and must be done.”

Significantly, ATZUM is the brainchild of Rabbi Levi Lauer, who sees a direct connection between Judaism and causes of social justice, including conferring upon women equal dignity to men, despite a sometimes underappreciated attitude that our tradition has toward females.

Because of ATZUM’s work, the issue of trafficking in women is slowly creeping into the public consciousness, and is seen more and more as a blight on Jewish decency. Most recently the Knesset passed a law that would empower the police to take actions against those who traffic in women. The challenge is whether the police will act in a serious manner to address this crime. As evidenced by a brief documentary done by news commentator Orly Vlinai-Federbush, one wonders, as the police – upon staging a raid to release some of these enslaved women who were literally caged in dungeons – treated the women with contempt; cursing them and physically roughing them up.

In an interview with Pini Aviram superintendent of the Tel Aviv Central Unit, he had little to say about the behavior of the police, but one could not help but notice the “instructional guidelines” posted on the wall near his office on how to handle women forced into prostitution:

1) All are liars;

2) do not believe any one of them;

3) arrest, do not hesitate.

Once liberated from the “prisons”, the women are housed in shelters until deportation, protected should they testify against their pimps or brothel owners. Approximately 2,500 women cross our borders annually and are sold into prostitution; not much different than the slave trade that took place in Africa, where auctions were held and slave traders examined the naked bodies of the potential slaves to determine their worth as laborers. So, too are these women stripped and examined for their potential economic drawing power.

Police Commander Danny Avi Meir, also of the Tel Aviv Central Unit, in a subsequent interview with Vilnai-Federbush, upon viewing the film, also did not condemn the police behavior. His claim is that law enforcement agencies are making progress. But, when one listens to his subordinate Aviram talk, this is hard to believe, as Aviram states that once one brothel is closed, two hundred more appear, which dovetails well with the same lame defense presented by Yaacov Sheklar, an attorney for some who traffic in women, and says: “as there’s a demand, the supply will reemerge and the places (whorehouses) will reopen.” Indeed, Aviram’s statement that for every house of prostitution that is closed, new ones open contradicts his and Avi Meir’s contention that in the Tel Aviv area the police have successfully reduced the number of woman actively involved in prostitution to a few hundred. In fact, last year there were only 166 men charged with trafficking in women, while at the same time 1,800 women were deported.

One would hope that armed with a new law that forbids the establishment of brothels and trafficking in women, the police will begin to systematically close whorehouses throughout the country and arrest those who operate them.  New York City’s 42nd Street at Times Square was known for its pornography and sex industries; and yet, within two years, Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up the area – without the prescient ratio of 200 to 1 brothels reopening elsewhere.  Quite the opposite, virtually none reopened.

Yet, in Israel, the pimps and brothel owners seem to operate freely and openly; and, contrary to the claims of the different law enforcement agencies, the reduction in the number of women who are forced into prostitution every year as they enter Israel has not been particularly significant.

Perhaps the reason for the minimal decrease in the female slave trade is that trafficking in women in Israel is an extremely complex problem. It comes with security concerns that are rarely addressed publicly. The trade-off seems simple: Better that some in the Bedouin community in the south make their money smuggling women rather than smuggling arms. This stark reality may well explain the infrequency of police raids to release women from their slave owners. Perhaps attorney Sheklar is right that current police operations “are nothing more than a display to promote police prestige and give the appearance of doing something”?

Our country must not use defenseless women as pawns in a security game. If our borders are porous, then they must be sealed. The character of a state is not only determined by its ability to guarantee its security, but also by its ability to guarantee its morality. Allowing slave masters and their partners to continue to traffic in women – demeaning and dehumanizing them – will ultimately undermine the social and ethical fabric of a Jewish state.

Recent Articles by Rabbi David Forman

• Counterpoint: Rabbis for Human Rights - the 20th anniversary - August 28th, 2008
• Counterpoint: 'Us' and 'them' - July 31st, 2008
• Counterpoint: An exercise in practical stupidity and moral idiocy - July 17th, 2008
• Counterpoint: A letter to a Jewish leader from abroad - July 3rd, 2008
• Counterpoint: What does the religious Right want? - June 19th, 2008
• Counterpoint: Forsaking both soldiers and the downtrodden - June 5th, 2008
• Counterpoint: Pigeonholing rights groups - March 27th, 2008
• Counterpoint: A liberal's lament - July 19th, 2007
• Truth and Hypocrisy - June 22nd, 2007
• Politics Make Strange Bedfellows - April 20th, 2007
• Feed the Hungry - March 2nd, 2007
• Trafficking in Women: A Blight on Jewish Decency - December 29th, 2006
• Rabbis for Human Rights receives Raphael Lemkin Human Rights Award - December 11th, 2006
• Succot has Universal Meaning - October 4th, 2006
• The Binding of Isaac - September 20th, 2006
• Try a Little Common Sense - July 25th, 2006
• Prisoners are no Asset - July 16th, 2006
• End the Degradation: An appeal to Israel's new defense minister - May 18th, 2006
• Yes, Birthright journey cheapens the message of Judaism - May 5th, 2006
• Getting beyond name-calling - March 29th, 2006
• Settlers, hands off the olive trees - December 26th, 2005
• MIAs - a failure of political will - December 11th, 2005
• Let's not turn to anti-Arab racism - November 14th, 2005
• To obey orders, or not - July 24th, 2005
• Forgotten in captivity - February 3rd, 2003
• Let PR constrain policy - August 7th, 2002
• Could the Right be right? - October 16th, 2001
• New intifada breeds depression, with no end in sight - April 13th, 2001
• Rabbi David Forman - May 16th, 2000

Categories: Perspectives
Tags: Bo, ease, fen, human rights, ISM, order, palestinians, rest, settlers, wall