In just over a week, Israeli lawmakers will be faced
with a tough decision: Whether to approve legislation that will make paying for
sex or utilizing any other type of sexual service a criminal offense.
While there is no exact figures on how many people
utilize the services of sex workers in Israel, anyone who has visited Tel Aviv
or Haifa lately will likely have come into contact with those little business
cards or flyers promoting “escort” services.
Generally, NGOs estimate that each month up to 10,000
men -- from all sectors of Israeli society (secular, religious, Jews, Arabs
and foreigners) -- visit one of the hundreds of discreet apartments or brothels
throughout the country.
What is worse, however, is that there are more than 15,000 individuals working in the prostitution industry
and 5,000 of them are minors. Most, say the professionals, are there because
they have no choice.
The decision to criminalize prostitution, which would
bring Israel in line with many other Western countries on this matter, is not
clear-cut, however.
Representatives of the Justice Ministry say that such
a law needs to also involve a complete overhaul of attitudes, a re-education of
society and also a new approach by the authorities both in terms of
rehabilitation and law enforcement.
Others argue that given the police’s failure to
enforce existing laws that make running a brothel and the pimping out of others
for sexual services illegal, it might be wiser just to make the multi-million
dollar sex industry legal and, in turn, regulate it.
While both arguments make sense on a certain level
those pushing for the law, which include Israeli parliamentarians from across
the political spectrum and NGOs working to promote human rights, say that it is
time the world’s oldest profession is put out of business completely.
There is no room in today’s world, they emphasize,
for “sexual slavery” or human servitude of any kind.
Rabbi Levi Lauer, founding executive director of ATZUM, whose Task Force on Human Trafficking (TFHT)
is one of the human rights groups actively supporting this legislation, says simply, “prostitution is a form of modern slavery.”
He offers a very solid theory on why we should all be
working to eradicate entirely this “profession” not just in Israel, but
throughout the world.
The way Lauer puts it, in the State of Israel alone “tens
of thousands of women are being raped everyday against their will and we,
society, are doing little to stop it.”
He points out further that most women caught in the
ugly world of selling themselves for sex are not there by choice, even if they
appear to be.
Without any formal studies on what makes a person
become a prostitute, most professionals in the field suggest that 90 percent or
more of sex workers were at one time victims of rape or incest.
Lauer points out, that given this profile, “it is
impossible for such a victim to then make a calculated decision that they ‘want’
to become a sex worker.”
“It is more likely that the person has been so
tragically psychologically affected and scarred by this experience that he or
she has low self esteem that has lead to this line of work,” he says, adding “If
that is how someone defines being a sex worker out of their free will, then I
guess I have a different definition of free will.”
On Sunday, the TFHT helped organize protests outside
Israeli consulates and embassies in London, New York, Washington DC and
opposite the Knesset in Jerusalem aimed at putting pressure on Israeli
lawmakers, including Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, to support the
legislation. An Israeli cabinet committee will debate the bill on Feb. 12.
While it is still unclear what stance Neeman or any
of the other government leaders will take -- after all this legislation could
put a serious dent in the side of an industry that makes millions, if not
billions, of dollars annually -- what is clear is that more public attention
needs to be paid to an issue that involves multiple rapes and modern day
slavery.
Considering how widespread the phenomenon is and how
quickly it is growing thanks to the Internet, lets just hope Israel’s leaders
will make the right choice.
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