Seventh Chapter: Recommendations
In the Report of 2003 we called upon the State of Israel to implement the following recommendations stated in the Commission on Human Rights resolution 2001/48 and in the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery - Sub-Commission on Human Rights resolution 2001/14:
Traffic in women and girls
Commission on Human Rights resolution 2001/48
The Commission on Human Rights,
6. Urges Governments to take appropriate measures to address the root factors, including external factors, that encourage trafficking in women and children, in particular girls, for prostitution and other forms of commercialized sex, forced marriages and forced labour, so as to eliminate trafficking in women, including by strengthening existing legislation with a view to providing better protection of the rights of women and girls and to punishing perpetrators, through both criminal and civil mesures;
The State of Israel should therefore:
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Close brothels and establishments related to organized prostitution. The law is passed but has lost its power . In fact it allows police and tax teams to enter places and instead of closing them down to threaten the prostituted persons and request taxes form the brothel keepers.
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Implement educational programs based on gender equality. Still to be developped.
8.
Calls upon Governments to criminalize trafficking in women and children in all its forms and to condemn and penalize traffickers and intermediaries, while ensuring protection and assistance to the victims of trafficking with full respect for their human rights;
The State of Israel should therefore:
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Implement the strengthened laws against traffickers and perpetrators. In process.
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Criminalize profiteers such as newspapers, hotels, taxi stations. Still to be developped.
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Create a shelter for the victims of trafficking. Done.
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Grant the victims of trafficking who testify against their perpetrators residence and work permit for the period of their testimony as well as professional training in order to prevent them to be dragged back into trafficking. Work and stay permit are issued only for the time of the trial. Additional year permit is in progress.
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Grant all the victims of trafficking including those who do not want to testify indemnities (financed with the money confiscated from traffickers and perpetrators) Still to be developped.
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Grant a safe place under the protection of the State and in contact with NGO`s for all the victims of trafficking till they can choose between testifying or going back to their countries of origin in an organized way. Still to be developped.
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Grant all victims of trafficking legal, psychological and medical assistance. In progress.
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Grant complete confidentiality to the victims of trafficking. Done usually.
9.
Encourages Governments to conclude bilateral, subregional, regional and international agreements to address the problem of trafficking in women and children, in particular girls;
The State of Israel should therefore:
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Conclude bilateral agreements with Egypt to address the problem of trafficking through the Egyptian border even though the Egyptian government stated that since the peace treaty with Israel they are not allowed to position armed forces on the common border. This problem should be addressed already in the Egyptian seaports and airports without stationing armed forces on the Israeli border. In progress.
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Conclude bilateral agreements with the countries of origin to inform women of the risk they encounter before coming to Israel and organize their repatriation with local NGO`s. Collaboration with foreign NGOs and States starts.
14.
Calls upon concerned Governments to allocate resources, as appropriate, to provide comprehensive programmes designed to heal and rehabilitate into society victims of trafficking, including through job training, legal assistance and health care and by taking measures to cooperate with non-governmental organizations to provide for the social, medical and psychological care of the victims;
The State of Israel should therefore:
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Allocate resources and take measures to cooperate with non-governmental organizations to provide the necessary social, medical and psychological care of the victims. Still not done.
All the above recommendations were taken into consideration in the reports of the "Inter-ministerial committee to study and combat the trafficking in persons for prostitution purposes" and the "Parliamentary Investigation Committee on Trafficking in Women" but still the police forces are not sufficiently aware of the issue of prostitution and are therefore still unable to handle it properly. The final report issued by the "Parliamentary Investigation Committee on Trafficking in Women" in March 2005 repeats many of the recommendations mentioned in the interim reports. We therefore recommend developing training sessions for all persons, holding positions and are involved with handling these issues: police forces, legal system, municipality officials, and welfare and health workers - on TIP issues as well as on prostitution. It is unacceptable to see public authority representatives in charge of the fight against TIP to be so unaware of organized prostitution or even use to purchase sexual services,
On a more general level it is essential to develop an education based on gender and sexual equality but also on the respect for the other whoever he/she is. Two of the worrying points noticed by Machon Toda`a lately are the development of a demand from women for prostitution, pornography and BDSM that cannot be considered anymore as limited to men and the development of Internet based rings exchanging material of child- pornography, both viewers and predators. To fight pornography and prostitution, we need to talk about human sexuality. How can we tolerate relations based on power (money, violence, mental, physical, emotional and economic abuse) that allow the buying and selling of the human body as a mere commodity in an age where human rights are so firmly on the global agenda?
