The government has drafted a national plan for combating human trafficking for the purposes of slavery and coercion, including steps in the areas of enforcement, prevention, and protection.

The purpose of the plan is to eliminate the phenomena of holding migrant workers in slavery conditions, through forced labor, coercing them to provide sexual services or collecting large sums of money from workers. "[This] is a necessary first step toward developing a strategy for eliminating this severe phenomena," said the paper, which was put together by the directors-general of the justice, public security, interior, industry, trade and labor, foreign, health, and welfare ministries along with the Prime Minister's Office and the police commissioner.

The committee adopted dozens of recommendations formulated by a special team headed by the Justice Ministry's Rachel Gershoni, who was appointed last year as the inter-ministerial coordinator for fighting human trafficking.

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The committee decided, however, to grant priority to five objectives during the first stage: dividing the work between enforcement agencies in order to increase the number of indictments against employers who use slavery or coercion; developing criteria for identifying victims of slavery; launching an information campaign in the workers' countries of origin to inform them of their rights; formulating a package of services for victims, including safe houses and health care; and helping victims repatriate to their countries of origin.

Five teams have been tasked with hammering out ways to meet the objectives within three to four months. At the same time, Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry inspectors as well as immigration and other police are undergoing training to help them recognize instances of the phenomena.

Israel will report the plan to the United States, ahead of the State Department's June report ranking countries based on their efforts to combat human trafficking. Israel dropped in the rankings last year, and was grouped with countries that do not do enough to root out the problem.

Last month, the State Department issued its interim report, in which it said that Israel had "made significant improvement," especially due to the passage of a law imposing a 16-years prison sentence on anyone convicted of human trafficking for purposes of slavery or coercion. The law had previously applied only to human trafficking of prostitutes.