Revised 14 October 2000

Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty.org

May 2000. "Israel: Human rights abuses of women trafficked from the Commonwealth of Independent States". AI Index: MDE 15/17/00. Report available from: Amnesty International, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001. Price: $5.00

A on-line version of the report that appears to begin with page 4 of the printed version is at:
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/MDE150172000

A summary of the report is at:
http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aipub/2000/SUM/51501700.htm

Begin excerpts of the print version of the report: "The Israeli government has failed to take adequate measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish human rights abuses committed against trafficked women in the context of trafficking...

...Enslavement and deprivation of liberty

Amnesty International has received information indicating that in many instances women trafficked from the CIS are literally bought and sold for large sums of money, often in auctions where they are purchased by the highest bidder. Some are held in debt bondage where they are forced to work to pay off large sums of money. Some women are kidnapped against their will in the CIS or are lured to Israel under false pretences, and brought work in the sex industry. Their 'owners' restrict their movements in order to prevent them from leaving. There are many reports of women being imprisoned by their 'owners' in locked houses and apartments and prevented from going out unaccompanied. There are also frequent reports of trafficked women's passports and other travel documents being taken away by their 'owners' in order to prevent them from leaving the country. In some cases, the misappropriation by 'owners' of the women's means of identification is also used to force them into the sex industry.

Violence against trafficked women

Women trafficked to Israel are frequently either threatened with or subjected to violence, including rape and other forms of sexual abuse, particularly if they refuse to have sex with customers or try to escape. There are reports of women being forced to have sex against their will with large numbers of men each day. Traffickers and others working in the sex industry sometimes issue threats against the lives and persona of trafficked women and their families, if they should leave the country and return to the CIS, or if they should provide intelligence to law enforcement agencies or testify in criminal prosecutions...

Tatiana's story

Tatiana arrived in Israel from Belarus in April 1998 on a tourist visa. She had been promised a job working 12 hours a day as a cleaner in a hotel in the resort of Eliat. She was told the job would pay her enough to support her mother and her six-year-old son.

Tatiana was met in Eilat by a man pretending to be from the the hotel where she was to be employed. He took her to a brothel, where she was forced to work in the sex industry against her will and told that she would have to repay her 'sale price' and the travel costs...

Tatiana made various plans to escape. She was finally released from the brothel after a police raid--a friend of hers had contacted the Belarus consulate who contacted the police. Tatiana was taken into custody as in illegal immigrant and detained in Neve Tirza Prison awaiting deportation.

Three days after her arrest, Tatiana found an anonymous note on her prison bunk threatening to kill her and punish her family if she spoke out about what had happened to her...

Valentina's story

'I had a nervous breakdown. I wanted to escape from this place and asked a client to help me. He turned out to be one of them and I was beaten up by the owners. There was nowhere to run--there were bars on the windows and bodyguards all the time, day and night.'

Valentina, a 27-year-old psychologist and a social worker, arrived in Israel in August 1998 from Moldova. She believed she was going to work as a company representative. Her travel and visa were arranged by the Israeli national who had offered her the job.

Valentina was met at the airport and taken to a hotel. The following day her money, passport and return ticket were taken from her and she was taken to an apartment where she was held for two months.

'The conditions were terrible. One girl was kept to work in the basement for eight months. It was damp there and she got tuberculosis as a result. Most of the girls had different diseases--veneral and others related to their reproductive organs. I do not wish even to my enemies to go through what we went through."...

Slavery and the buying and selling of persons are not criminal offences..." (emphases mine) (End excerpt from May 2000. "Israel: Human rights abuses of women trafficked from the Commonwealth of Independent States". AI Index: MDE 15/17/00. Report available from: Amnesty International, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001. Price: $5.00)

-----------------------------------------------------------

18 May 2000, Amnesty International. News Release - MDE 15/24/00. ISRAEL. "Israeli government must stop human rights abuses against trafficked women". http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/index/MDE150242000

Please note that the example of Anna is exemplary only of women who knew they were going to work in the so-called "sex industry". She does not typify women who were offered jobs as nannies, waitresses, maids, etc--who appear to be the majority of sex slaves.

Excerpt: "I had a nervous breakdown. I wanted to escape from this place and asked a client to help me. He turned out to be one of them and I was beaten up by the owners. There was nowhere to run -- there were bars on the windows and bodyguards all the time, day and night." (Testimony of a woman trafficked from Moldova)

The Israeli government is failing to protect the human rights of women and girls who are trafficked from countries of the former Soviet Union to work in Israel's sex industry, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

"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," the organization said.

Anna, a 31-year-old physics teacher from the Russian Federation was lured to Israel by the promise of a job in the sex industry earning 20 times her Russian salary. When she arrived, her passport was taken from her and she was locked in an apartment with bars on the windows along with six other women from former Soviet Union countries. She was auctioned twice, on the second occasion for US$10,000. The women were rarely allowed to leave the apartment and never allowed out alone. Much of the money they earned was extorted from them by their pimps...

Rather than taking action against human rights abuses experienced by the women, Israeli governmental agencies in effect treat them as criminals, by holding women in detention for extended periods, for example. In 1998, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed its regret that "women brought to Israel for the purposes of prostitution ... are not protected as victims of trafficking but are likely to bear the penalties of their illegal presence in Israel by deportation."

Many trafficked women end up in detention in a police lock-up or Neve Tirza prison following raids on brothels and massage parlours by the police and they are rarely released on bail pending deportation. Others may be detained for longer, sometimes because the Ministry of Justice has issued an order preventing the woman from leaving the country until she has testified in a criminal case..."

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw

For a useful summary of quotes (through 1998), check the Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation: Israel Trafficking:
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/israel.htm

Excerpts: "Russian women are bought and sold by pimps in Israel for prices ranging from US$5,000 to $20,000." (Police sources, "'Invisible' Women Shown In Russia's Demographics," Martina Vandenberg, St. Petersburg Times, 13 October 1997)

"Women trafficked from Eastern Europe, were stripped and sold naked as slaves to Tel Aviv traders for US$500-1,000. Smuggling, fraudulent documents, collaboration between police and brothel owners are involved. There are routine brutal beatings and sexual abuse." (New York Times 11 January 1998)

"The non-profit Israel Women's Network estimates that 70% of prostituted women  in Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial center, come from the former Soviet republics, and that about 1,000 women are brought into Israel illegally each year. At any one time, as many as 100 women may be awaiting deportation in Neve Tirza women's prison near Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport, a prison spokeswoman said." (Elisabeth Eaves, "Israel not the promised land for Russian sex slaves", Reuters, 23 August 1998)

(former) Global Survival Network (now WildAid and Witness.org)

November 1997. Crime & Servitude: An Exposé of the Traffic in Women for Prostitution from the Newly Independent States. http://www.globalsurvival.net/femaletrade/9711russianabstract.html

Online version of report: http://www.globalsurvival.net/femaletrade/9711russia.html

Excerpt from report: "Every year, the trafficking of human beings for the sex trade puts hundreds of thousands of women at risk of losing their personal freedom, suffering physical and emotional harm, working in degrading and sometimes life-threatening situations, and being cheated of their earnings. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, an increasing percentage of these women are from Russia and the Newly Independent States. Most of them never imagined that they would enter such a hellish world of crime and servitude, having traveled abroad to find better jobs or to see the world. Many, in their naivete, believed that nothing bad could happen to them in rich and comfortable countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Japan, or the United States. Others, who were less naive but still desperate for money and opportunity, are equally affected by the cruel and unforgiving grip of traffickers.

Unfortunately, during the chaos of massive political, social, and economic change in Russia and the Newly Independent States, criminal elements have been able to establish themselves in the international business of trafficking women. Operating through nominally reputable employment agencies, entertainment companies, or marriage agencies, these criminals mislead and manipulate women, who become pawns in a vicious, illegal worldwide trade. In the most extreme cases, the criminals buy and sell women and children as if they were mere objects or animals.

Lena's Story

To understand what it means to be a slave today, consider the case of "Lena."

Several years ago in the Russian Far East, 19-year-old Lena, seeking to travel and earn money, joined several other Russian women who had responded to a newspaper ad for a work and study program in China. "They brought us the contracts that described all the conditions: medical insurance, housing, food, travel there and back," reported Lena.

The women were flown to Jukhai, China, where they studied cooking for a month. "Everything seemed fine. Until they took our passports, in spite of the fact that the contract had a point that said that everybody should have their passports with them," she continued. "Then they didn't return our passports. When we demanded them, they immediately and categorically told us '$15,000 for each passport.'" It soon became clear that the "restaurant" Lena had been hired to work in didn't exist, and none of the girls were being paid.

One of the girls in Lena's group, a 17-year-old, was purchased by a competing group, which paid $15,000 for her passport and transported her to Macau to work as a prostitute. From that point on, Lena and her friends endured beatings, imprisonment, and hunger. "They began to withhold our monthly salaries. They locked us up without food and without money. There was a balcony...You could jump if you wanted to die." The Chinese bosses said they would give the girls their passports if they started to "cooperate," which meant working in hotels, restaurants, and karaoke clubs as "entertainers" and prostitutes for Chinese men.

Lena and her friends eventually escaped. With little money and enraged by what had happened to them, they traveled to several Chinese cities and appealed without success to Russian consulates and Chinese city mayors for assistance to return home. "At times we had to work like this: you're walking down the street, a car drives up, you agree that tonight you'll sit with them in a restaurant, karaoke, and they will pay you some money for it. Just like prostitution." The women met some Russian men, who offered to help them return home in exchange for sexual favors. "So that's how we worked for three months, to make some money to leave. We had to work in different places, some of them awful, when there was not even a penny in the wallet."

Lena and the others finally managed to get back to Russia. At home now, Lena says she has a hard time trusting anyone and keeps a gun for protection. "I sometimes have to turn to a psychiatrist to put myself back in place, because I became very jumpy. My health is ruined. I simply curse the day when my romantic notions made me decide, having trusted these people, to go see China," she concluded.

The Investigation

Thousands of women from Russia and the Newly Independent States have endured such exploitation and slavery during recent years, yet their stories have been largely ignored by most law-enforcement agencies and governments. Unfortunately, as this report reveals, police agencies in receiving countries often minimize the extent of trafficking..." (End excerpt from: http://www.globalsurvival.net/femaletrade/9711russia.html)

A video is available from this organization:

"Bought & Sold: An Investigative Documentary About the International Trade in Women" (1997).
http://www.witness.org/store.htm.
$40.00 in U.S. currency and format. An online version can be seen at:

http://www.oddcast.com/witness/.
Click on "Bought and Sold". Best for readers with fast Internet connections.

From the site: "This 42 Minute documentary was produced and directed by current WITNESS Director Gillian Caldwell while she was co-director of the Global Survival Network (GSN). It is based on a two year undercover investigation conducted by GSN into the illegal trafficking in women from the Former Soviet Republics, and features interviews with traffickers, Russian mafia, trafficked women, and groups working to provide services to trafficked women. Bought & Sold is available in English and in Russian, and it comes with two complementary reports "Crime & Servitude: An Expose ont the Trafficking of Russian Women" which is also available in Russian and English, and "Trapped", a report on trafficking and forced labor in the Marianas Island."

---

International Organization for Migrants
http://www.iom.int/

Caution from Elena:
The motto of this organization is "orderly migration benefits migrants and society"...Translation: not-White immigration to White nations is promoted.

PDF file: Trafficking in Migrants. Quarterly bulletin. No. 18 - June 1998. ISSN 1027-7633. Global report from an organization that gets money from governments. http://www.iom.int/iom/Publications/entry.htm. Excerpt from page 2 of PDF:

Excerpt: "The methods of the prostitution ringleaders are ruthless: beating and rapes are routinely used to break the resistance of those unwilling to sell themselves. Reports from Israel, Turkey and Serbia also tell of women who refused to cooperate being killed. These executions were done in front of other women to make them obedient.

The trafficking of Slavic women is said to be controlled by Russian and Ukrainian criminal organizations, who have worldwide networks for transport, 'security', and document forgery."

May 1995. Migration Information Programme. "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe". International Organization for Migrants.
http://www.iom.int/IOM/Publications/books_studies_surveys/MIP_traff_women_eng.htm

Begin excerpt: "...Trafficking in women from East to West is increasing because it is easier and cheaper for traffickers to bring women from Central and Eastern Europe to Western Europe than to recruit women from developing countries. Women do not have to travel so far and legal entry as a tourist is easy, as visa restrictions no longer apply to many (although not all) citizens from Central and Eastern Europe. Huge profits can be made by forcing women into prostitution, since the risks for the traffickers are not great. Sentences against traffickers are light, and there are few successful convictions. Partly this is because many countries deport victims immediately, thereby losing valuable witnesses. Both Belgium and the Netherlands have introduced temporary residence permits for victims in recent years, to give them some time to recover from their ordeal, and to encourage them to testify against traffickers.

Many of the recent victims of trafficking from Central and Eastern Europe in the Netherlands are very young. Most women are under 25, and many are only 15-18 years of age. Victims from developing countries tend to be older on average, are more likely to be married and to have children. A high proportion of all victims were unemployed in their country of origin or have never had a job before. Some women were offered legitimate jobs and then tricked into prostitution, while others knew that they would work as prostitutes. Regardless of the work expected, however, all the women in the sample ultimately found themselves trapped in prostitution.

The recruitment of these women was often informal -- through friends and acquaintances -- but, on arrival in the destination country, many women found themselves indebted to a trafficker or club owner. In many instances, their passports were taken away from them, their freedom was extremely limited (particularly for those forced to live where they worked), and they were threatened with violence. Many received no earnings, especially the very young women. They were forced to work long hours and were often not allowed to refuse clients. Not surprisingly, a high proportion of victims have medical problems. Many, especially the teenagers, contracted sexually transmitted diseases and there is a high incidence of reported mental health problems.

Judging by the evidence available, trafficking in women continues to be a considerably under-reported offence throughout Europe..." (end excerpt)

MiraMed Institute

International Sex Trafficking from Russia
http://www.miramedinstitute.org/traffickingENG.html

PDF: "Preliminary Survey Report on Sexual Trafficking in the CIS", June 1999. Excerpt from page 7 of PDF (Quote from Participant in Yaroslavl Oblast):

Excerpt: "One day last year a well dressed businesswoman came to Uglich in a Mercedes Benz. She told high school girls she met that she would take them to MacDonalds in Yaroslavl. They left with her in her car and we never saw them again. And when the same lady came back this spring, she took more girls and they also disappeared. Our girls are too vulnerable."