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Author : Amnesty International
Title : Israel Human rights abuses of women trafficked from countries of the former Soviet Union into Israel’s sex industry
Year : 2000

Link download : Amnesty_International_-_Israel.zip

Every year hundreds of women are trafficked from countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) for the purpose of working in Israel’s sex industry. Many of these women are subjected to human rights abuses in Israel, such as violent assaults, enslavement and other restrictions on their liberty at the hands of traffickers, pimps or others involved in Israel’s sex industry. 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. In addition, their plight is compounded by the absence of any asylum adjudication procedure in Israel despite its ratification of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. This in turn makes trafficked women vulnerable to the possibility of being forcibly returned to countries where they risk being subjected to human rights abuses. In recent years, increased attention has been devoted to the global phenomenon of trafficking in persons. However, there has been a marked tendency on the part of governmental and intergovernmental actors to conceive trafficking in persons as smuggling, thereby mistaking it simply for an infringement of immigration, labour or criminal legislation and focussing on it exclusively in the larger context of transnational organized crime. In turn, this approach has resulted in an oversimplification of the phenomenon which has been detrimental to the development of prevention strategies to combat the human rights abuses to which trafficked persons are subjected in the context of trafficking, whether at the hands of the traffickers themselves or at the hands of state agents. The trafficking of women and girls for work in the sex industry has been a specific focus of attention.1 World-wide, a significant proportion of women trafficked within or across national borders for work in the sex industry are subjected to human rights abuses in the context of trafficking. The abuses range from violent assaults, including torture, to enslavement. Although non-state actors, in this case traffickers, pimps or others involved in the sex industry, who all ultimately provide the demand for trafficked women, are the most common perpetrators of such human rights abuses, these abuses take place in an environment which facilitates their perpetration as a result of the authorities’ complicity, acquiescence or, at best, inadequate response. To date, however, there is no universally accepted definition of “trafficking in persons”, let alone of “trafficking” of women for work in the sex industry. Much of the data reported through various channels about trafficking of women for work in the sex industry is anecdotal and difficult to document. ...