MODERN WHITE SLAVERY IN ISRAELI: women sales and combatting sex trafficking

A designer clothing store, a comic book store, a tattoo parlor and a ... women for sale store.

This unusual window display shocked shoppers at a busy Tel Aviv mall last week when among the run-of-the-mill shops, they came across a group of young women standing in a storefront.

Hanging from their wrists were price tags detailing their age, weight, height, dimensions and country of origin.

Organizers said the campaign is designed to bring awareness to women trafficking. Through public events like these and a public website they hope to collect enough signatures to pressure the Israeli justice ministry to back legislation that makes it a crime for men to go to prostitutes.

This legislation is the next important step in the fight against women trafficking, said attorney Ori Keidar, one of the founders of the task force against the problem.

"The legislation against the prostitutes' customers will bring a reduction in the demand for prostitution and it will be a less lucrative business for crime organizations," Keidar said.

"This in turn will bring a reduction in the trafficking of women."

Keidar said the legislation is modelled after similar legislation in Sweden that has drastically reduced trafficking and prostitution.

Over the past decade, about 10,000 women have been trafficked into Israel in what Keidar calls "modern slavery."

The women are locked, beaten, raped, starved and forced to receive 15-30 men a day 365 days a year, according to the attorney.

About three years ago, Israeli police greatly reduced women trafficking by pouring resources into the problem. Security forces have also helped by stepping up patrols on the Israeli-Egyptian border as a result of Al Qaeda presence in the Sinai.

This 300-kilometer border was the main route for smuggling women into Israel, Keidar said.

"This legislation against the customers will bring a further reduction in trafficking and with a little more pressure we can make this go away" Keidar said.

Modern white slavery in Israeli Dizengoff shopping mall!!

An Amnesty International report wrote that “Many of these women and girls become ‘commodities’, literally bought and sold for thousands of dollars or held in debt bondage. They are locked up in apartments and have their passports and travel tickets confiscated. Many women are subjected to violence, including rape. Yet most of the people who commit such human rights abuses are never brought to justice by the Israeli government.”