-Caveat Lector- http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/02/21/017.html
Friday, Feb. 21, 2003. Page 10 Israel Tackles Trafficking of Women Sex Slaves By Ramit Plushnick-Masti The Associated Press Eitan Hess-ashkenazi / AP Ephraim Ehrlich, an Israeli police intelligence chief, checking IDs in a Tel Aviv brothel. HADERA, Israel -- After a five- hour drive over the Egyptian desert, Inna crawled through a tunnel under a border fence, brushed sand off her pants and waited with seven other women to be taken to their new jobs. Running from poverty in her homeland of Moldova, Inna had come to the Holy Land to enter a profession older than the Bible -- prostitution. A $1 billion-a-year sex trade, reputedly one of the biggest of its kind in the world, has sprung up in Israel over the past decade. Every year, hundreds of women from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are smuggled into Israel. The trafficking is linked to the Russian mafia taking root in Israel as a byproduct of mass immigration from the former Soviet Union. Many of the women are spirited in across Israel's border with Egypt, which runs along 300 kilometers of desert that is difficult to guard against smuggling. Offenders get off too lightly, a parliamentary committee says. Courts routinely sentence pimps to community service or short prison terms, the panel said in a report late last year. It called for minimum jail terms of 16 years. Often, the women are mistreated, held as virtual prisoners and beaten by pimps, said Ephraim Ehrlich, an intelligence chief in the police immigration bureau. "The people who work in this field have no conscience. All they care about is money," Ehrlich said. Many women, 22-year-old Inna among them, are forced to work off their airfare and purchase fees. Some are raped by Bedouin smugglers who get them across the border, Ehrlich said. Their passports are taken by their pimps and they are not allowed to go out alone from the brothels, which are generally apartments in seedy neighborhoods. Using a fictitious name during an interview while being held at a police lockup, Inna said she was forced to see up to 15 clients a day. She said each client paid 150 shekels ($30), with half going to her and half to her pimp. Inna said she was depressed and ashamed and had a venereal disease. "I couldn't get used to this -- the men, the mentality, the treatment," she said. She had arranged for a new passport from the Moldovan Embassy in Tel Aviv and bought a plane ticket home. Her pimp didn't object, she said, because she had paid off her "purchase price" and it is easy for him to bring in new women. But before Inna could use her plane ticket, undercover police raided her brothel and arrested 12 women -- 11 from Moldova and one from Ukraine. All were taken to a holding facility in the central Israeli town of Hadera to await deportation. Inna and her colleagues refused to testify against their pimps, fearing both retribution from the pimps and the shame of having their families find out about their work. During her six months in Israel, Inna said, she was able to send $3,500 to her mother and sister back in their Moldovan village. "After everything I saw here, I don't ever want to come back," she said. Inna said she was unemployed in Moldova and had come to Israel voluntarily after hearing of women making money as prostitutes. A middleman in Moldova sent Inna to Moscow with eight other women. A day later, they flew to Egypt. They were taken to Bedouin tribesmen in the desert and driven at night to the Israeli border. Carrying a small bag with underwear and a toothbrush, Inna crawled through a narrow tunnel dug under the border fence, and arrived in Israel sandy, tired and already homesick. ''Then the pimps came and began to buy us, one by one, " Inna said. The area police commander, Rafi Peled, said about 25 women had recently been arrested and deported. "We have cut off a big branch of the tree of trafficking in women," he said. "We have not yet uprooted the trunk." Back Email it Next Print Top Email Us © Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved. Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. 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