Gov't drafts broad plan to combat trafficking in women - Haaretz

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Sun., October 07, 2007 ,

Israel Time: 02:19 (EST+7)

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Gov't drafts broad plan to combat trafficking in women

By Ruth Sinai

The government has formulated a multi-faceted plan to fight trafficking in women. Under the plan, it will work to prevent foreign women from being sold into prostitution in Israel, reduce prostitution here and keep Israeli women from being sent abroad to work in the sex industry.

The plan was prepared by a committee including the directors general of nine government ministries, and representatives of the police and anti-women trafficking organizations.

Five teams are now being formed to draft operative steps for the next several months and to calculate the budget needed.

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The plan includes 30 measures of prevention, enforcement and protection. It seeks to make monitoring the border with Egypt a top priority - that is where most foreign women are brought into Israel.

Under the plan, the women would be returned safely to their country of origin and would receive medical treatment in Israel if necessary. A PR campaign is to be launched in Israel and in the women's home countries in order to explain the implications for victims of human trafficking.

The committee also recommended more economic measures to limit profits from human trafficking, in part by involving police tax-fraud investigators. The committee also noted that resources are necessary to translate the testimonies of victims and to enable proper police questioning, so that their handlers can be prosecuted.

The plan also calls for research into prostitution and human trafficking, and for curbing demand for sex services by better enforcing the law prohibiting sex advertisements and by taking action against clubs and other sites where prostitution occurs, among other measures.

To speed up legal proceedings against suspects accused of women trafficking, the committee recommends authorizing a single judge, rather than a panel of three judges, to adjudicate cases.

The committee also called for raising judges' and attorneys' awareness regarding the importance of awarding human trafficking victims compensation in court, and is seeking to institute ways of getting these payments to women who have left the country.

The directors general committee on trafficking in women was to have been established in 2003, when some 3,000 women a year were victims of trafficking, but began work only in 2006.

Due to increased enforcement and prevention, current estimates state that less than 1,000 women are trafficked into Israel a year.

However, attorney Rochelle Gershuni, the Justice Ministry coordinator of government bodies and nonprofit organizations against human trafficking, says she is concerned the numbers could rise again. Among other things, Gershuni says she shares the concern that the decision to allow Russian tourists in without a visa - a cabinet decision set to go into effect at the end of the year - might enable women from the former Soviet Union to be smuggled into Israel.

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