Report from Isha L'Isha: Fighting Against Trafficking and Forced Prostitution in Women

Fund members, 

We thought you may be interested in this report from Isha L'Isha, updating their fine work in social justice and trafficking in Israel.  

They write...

"Dear friends,

We are pleased to share with you Isha L'Isha's recent achievements in the Fighting Against Trafficking and Forced Prostitution in Women. Attached please find an activity report covering the period May 2009 - April 2010.

On this occasion, we would like to thank the donors who have supported this important program and have entrusted us with their funds. Your generous support has enabled us to implement the program in an effective and timely manner.

For further information on our anti-trafficking efforts, you can contact Ms. Rita Chaikin, the project coordinator at rita@isha.org.il
 
Kind regards, Khulud"

Best,
Susan

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About Isha L’Isha

Isha L’Isha is a multi-cultural organization and one of the leading voices of women’s rights in Israel, committed to advancing their status, especially of women from socio-economically marginalized communities. Our 26 years of experience in running projects that address women’s needs has earned a national reputation for dedication to women’s rights. Our staff and volunteers are frequently invited to participate in coalition and Parliamentary meetings to provide the input, ideas and know-how that result from our experience. Throughout the years, we have empowered thousands of women and provided them with skills to take control of their lives.

Isha L’Isha’s mission is to advance the status of all women in Israel by: (a) empowering them and encouraging them to become leaders in their communities; (b) campaigning for full civil rights and equal opportunities for women; (c) opposing all forms of violence against women; (d) developing and encouraging new projects to address women's needs, and (e) promoting collaboration between women’s organizations. Our current projects include Fighting against Trafficking in Women for the sex industry, Women, Peace & Security, and Women and Medical Technologies.

Fighting Against Trafficking and Forced Prostitution in Women

The ultimate aim of the project is to end trafficking in women for the sex industry. The project employs multiple strategies for this end: comprehensive education and awareness-raising campaign for sex costumers, potential sex costumers and the wider public, advocacy work in order to secure social, medical and human rights of trafficking victims, empowerment workshops to help victims rehabilitate, legal consultation for victims, and close networking and coalition-building with other NGOs working in the field.

Isha L'Isha has been on the forefront of the fight against trafficking in women since 2002, and has gained extensive professional expertise in the field. In nine years of anti-trafficking work, we have gained experience in sex client education campaigns, public awareness-raising lectures and workshops, advocacy work, networking with NGOs in source countries to help victims in their safe return home, and in organizing multi-national seminars. We work closely with the police, who consult us on a regular basis in international cases. We are also invited on a regular basis to parliamentary meetings to provide our input on all aspects of trafficking.

Project Accomplishments: May 2009 – April 2010


Advocacy

The Knesset (Israeli Parliament) was not active until April 2009 due to the elections. We were very disappointed that Ms. Zehava Galon – head of the Subcommittee on Trafficking in Women – was not elected. Ms Galon always helped us in advancing the issues important to us. The committee is now headed by a new Knesset member from the Kadima party, Orit Zuaretz. We sent her a letter expressing our request that we want to investigate why the police is not active in the field and is not doing anything regarding pimps. We demand that the punishment for pimping in local women be equal to the punishment of traffickers in international cases. The project coordinator, Rita Chaikin, met with Ms. Zuaretz in July and discussed these issues with her.

A legislation proposal was brought to first Knesset reading, which would criminalize sex costumers. Isha L’Isha, along with a number of NGOs, met to discuss the implications of this legislation on women. We also held a panel to which we invited women who work in the sex industry to hear their voices. The women expressed their fears of this law, as it does not provide any protection for women. Should the law pass as it is formulated now, women who work in the sex industry will be even more vulnerable to physical and sexual violence than they already are. Our position on this law is that – alongside criminalizing sex costumers – it has to set provisions of protection of these women. After its first reading, the law was returned for corrections. Isha L’Isha is present at meetings of the Ministry of Justice that discusses this legislation to provide our input from the field. We also formulated a position paper with recommendations for changes in the legislation.

We continue to advocate for greater government responsiveness to the needs of trafficking victims, focusing on their social, economic and health rights. In this regard, we had a major success with the Ministry of Interior whereby they changed a specific requirement regarding the birth certificate of children born to foreign women without status. Indeed we see this as a major accomplishment, as this will affect not only trafficking victims but also migrant workers and/or foreign women giving birth in Israel.

Advocating for policy change in the conduct of the police and their treatment of trafficking victims: a total of 124 complaints were filed to the police during the reporting period. In addition, as part of our efforts to educate professionals and provide them skills in identifying and helping victims of trafficking, the Police Academy near Haifa recognizes the importance of NGO field work, and the cooperation between NGOs and police in the fight against trafficking in women. Rita is invited to lecture at every course of the advanced investigators course. In these lectures, she discusses the psychological aspects of trafficking victims and provides a non-governmental field perspective of the phenomenon.

A tour to the sex-industry areas in Tel Aviv for Members of Knesset to understand the issues and get first-hand experience.

We continue to advocate at the National Insurance Institute to demand that foreign women receive financial allocations for their children. Here, again, we were successful in establishing precedents whereby a foreign woman receives financial allocations for her children by order of the court. This is a very important development, as it indicates that the state is beginning to recognize these women’s rights.

Direct Intervention

During the reporting period, we helped in 23 cases of compensation payments for women. We connected most of these women to NGOs in their source countries, and they have begun receiving help. Isha L’Isha has developed a special expertise in locating women entitled to compensation and in cooperating with NGOs in the FSU for this specific purpose. The compensation is in criminal cases, and the highest compensation paid in 2009 was 110,000 NIS.

In 2009, the Tel-Aviv central police unit uncovered a major case of trafficking in women, and our organization took an active part in accompanying the victims and helping them emotionally. The case received wide media coverage.

We have been successful in obtaining a “green-lane” at the Department for Legal Aid, where the women we refer for legal aid do not have to go through all the bureaucratic process nor wait for their turn, but rather are immediately served.

Participation in site-visits to sex-industry areas and provide initial help to victims: our veteran volunteers join the weekly tours of sex-industry areas, which are conducted by the new government project “Women’s Horizon,” with which we fully cooperate. Our trained volunteers contribute from their extensive experience in working with women victims of trafficking. This cooperation has proven very successful in terms of pooling resources, as the “Women’s Horizon” provides the funding and the new volunteers for these tours, and Isha L’Isha provides the trained volunteers who guide the new ones. We hope to continue cooperating with this important government-funded initiative.

We continue to provide a telephone support line to victims and referring them to the relevant bodies according to the individual women’s needs and situation. The total number of calls during the reporting period was 520, which includes both first-time and second-time callers.

Providing an Emergency Humanitarian Fund for victims of sexual exploitation. The fund covers a range of essential and immediate needs and services, such as initial money for reintegration into the community, psychological treatment, medical treatment, medical insurance, medicine, and more.

Art Therapy Group for Victims of Trafficking and Forced Prostitution

In full cooperation with “Women’s Horizon,” a project for women in prostitution run by the Municipality of Haifa, we held a unique art-therapy course for victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. In this 12-session course, we saw women rehabilitating through art work. We focused on a group of women who are still in prostitution but who want to leave it and are in need of help. Throughout this course we’ve seen the creation of a new language – the language of art – of women in distress. The facilitator of this course, Ms. Tsipa Ziskind, and the project coordinator, Ms. Rita Chaikin, were amazed to see the strong will and determination of participating women to create and talk through their art. Their art helped us understand the different emotional stages of the women as well as identify their different needs. The course was very successful and, as one of the women said, “You brought me back to life, to something I never had in my childhood. Today I allow myself to be in my own world and to create. This is my place of calm, a world in which I feel safe.”

Empowerment course for mothers who are victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation

This course was held in cooperation with Itach – Maaki: Women Lawyers for Social Justice. The workshops provide mothers with tools to create a warm, supportive environment for the sound development of the child, listening to the child, feelings of belonging to a family, encouraging the child’s self-expression, and more. These courses are especially important for victims of sexual exploitation, as many of these women suffered from a difficult and abusive childhood without positive parental role models. Thus, they are unable to give their children the love and support they themselves did not receive. It is important to relate to these difficulties so each woman can find the power in herself to provide this support to her own child.

Empowerment and basic life skills course

A third course that began in 2010 for victims of trafficking and forced prostitution is an empowerment course that provides basic life skills for participating women. The contents of the course are designed in a modular way, enabling the facilitator to adapt them to the specific needs that arise throughout the course. The issues in this course include: life purpose and vision; internal and external constraints on the way to attaining goals; personal strengths and abilities that help in overcoming obstacles; defining the terms “self-respect”; doubts and dilemmas – internal conflicts; responsibility and decision-making in life; money, income, expenses, and responsibility; sources of conflicts and solutions; coping with unwanted reality; interpersonal authorities and boundaries and the relationship between them; sources of violence; consultation and seeking for help (internal obstacles for seeking help); from power struggle to cooperation; encouragement as a basis for developing self-confidence and self-worth; coping with stress.

Education

We continue with our education campaign, holding lectures and workshops to various groups of population. A total of 25 lectures and workshops were held to 879 participants during the reporting period. Each workshop and lecture is especially designed for the specific target population. Participating groups include: high school girls, groups of women, social work students, graduate students of law, police officers and the wider public.


Consultation

During the reporting period, we continued to provide professional consultation to various governmental and non-governmental bodies and projects on various aspects of the phenomenon of trafficking and prostitution in women both locally and globally.

The project coordinator, Ms Rita Chaikin, met with NGO representatives – both local and international – and discussed Isha L’Isha’s experience in education campaigns for sex consumers. She provided professional consultation to a number of small projects on how to implement effective advocacy strategies in order to change governmental policies.

Representatives from La Strada Ukraine and La Strada Moldova visited our center and we exchanged experience and knowledge with them. In addition to the phenomenon of trafficking, they were interested also in the broader issue of violence against women.

This year, we are providing ongoing consultation to the “Women's Horizon,” part of a comprehensive project of the inter-ministerial plan to help women out of forced prostitution, with which we have also established very good working relations.

We have consolidated good relations with both the Haifa and Tel Aviv sex clinics. In Haifa, a new project was recently initiated: a mobile unit for treating STDs for at-risk women. We are happy to note that we received a permit to conduct the guidance and training on everything that is related to forced prostitution to the whole staff of this mobile unit.

Knowledge Exchange Trip to Georgia

In July 2009, Rita Chaikin and one of the project volunteers, Olga Medvedovskaja were invited by the Women’s Cultural-Humanitarian Fund Sukhumi to Kutaisi, Georgia. They were asked to talk about the activities of Israeli women's organizations addressing women’s rights in a spectrum of different aspects of life, and about their struggle to end violence against women. During their visit, Rita and Olga shared their experience, and spoke about the history of the struggle for the recognition of women's rights in Israel. In particular, Rita and Olga addressed the following issues:

The change in attitude in Israel towards the phenomenon of trafficking in women, and the way NGOs influence and shape policies;

How to fight for women's rights;

The development of various projects and ideological movements aimed at changing current laws and regulations;

Methods of working with governmental organizations and entities;

External sources of influence on the public system;

The contradictions and difficult aspects of the relationships between governmental and non-governmental organizations, and their impact on cooperation;

Working with a coalition of non-governmental organizations;

Lobbying in the Parliament and working within the legal system;

Monitoring the implementation of laws and regulations, and

Networking and working with the media.

Uzbekistan Consultation

We are happy to share with you this important trip, as it constitutes part of our ongoing network of consultation. Similar to the trip to Georgia, Rita was invited to provide consultation and share her knowledge and experience in the field of trafficking in women for the sex industry and effective advocacy work to change policies. She met with about 30 representatives of 10 NGOs from the Istiqbolli Avlod Network, where she discussed effective strategies in work with both governmental and non-governmental bodies, dilemmas and working with women victims of trafficking as a marginalized group.


International Workshop on Preventing Trafficking in Human Beings

This international seminar, organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israel’s National Agency for International Cooperation – MASHAV, in cooperation with International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Center for International Migration and Immigration (CIMI), was held in May. Rita was invited to speak at a panel on “How to Prevent Migrants Becoming Vulnerable to Exploitation and Trafficking Once in Destination Country.” The audience included representatives from NGOs and governmental bodies from different countries.

Seminar: Invisible Women – Women and Girls in Prostitution

The seminar, held in November 2009, was organized in cooperation with “Women’s Horizon” and attended by more than 160 people, most of them social workers and professionals who are engaged in providing assistance to women and girls in forced prostitution. The aim of the seminar was to raise awareness of the fact that women in prostitution have unique needs and to discuss possible ways of dealing with their problems and helping them leave prostitution. This need arose from discussions with the women themselves, where they related that the assistance they received from the welfare departments was not suited or adopted to their specific needs. The seminar further dealt with dilemmas social workers and other professionals deal with when working with women in prostitution. In her opening remarks, Dr. Sarai Aharoni, a board member of Isha L’Isha, stressed the connections between capitalism, forced prostitution and trafficking in women for the sex industry. The seminar was the first of its kind to be held in the North of Israel, and the number of people attending indicates that there is both an interest as well as a need for such a seminar. We received very positive feedback from seminar participants, and we are planning a similar seminar in the upcoming months for professionals from the Tel Aviv area.

Article: Immigration, Women and Prostitution: the Case of Women from the Former Soviet Union in Israel

Rita Chaikin and Dr. Hannah Safran, a feminist researcher who is also a member of Isha L’Isha, wrote an article for a book which will include articles from around the world about prostitution. The name of the book: The Prostitution of Women, Men & Children: A Global Perspective Implications for Research, Policy, Education, and Service. Our article deals with the prostitution of immigrant women from the FSU, and delineates the cultural, social and economic factors alongside difficult adaptation patterns into the new country that played major roles in the deterioration of women into prostitution.

A Woman of Peace Award

We are excited to share with you that at the close of 2009 Rita, the project coordinator, received a Woman of Peace Award from the Women’s Peacepower Foundation for her work. The foundation makes awards to grassroots projects around the world that are working to impact issues of violence against women and their children.

Rita was also nominated for the International Woman of Courage Award which is awarded by the US Department of State, for courage and leadership in advocating for women’s rights and unparalleled commitment to seeking justice for victims of trafficking in persons.

A word from Ms. Rita Chaikin, the project coordinator: Compensation for trafficking victims on a criminal base

“In May 2009, and after a whole year of search, I finally succeeded in locating M from Moldova, who had been trafficked to Israel for purposes of sexual exploitation. M had suffered a very harsh abuse in Israel, and during her testimony she was kidnapped and sent back to Moldova under life threats. The court of law ordered her trafficker to pay a sum of 7,000 NIS to M and her friends. After a number of years, the trafficker suddenly paid his fine. As soon as I found M’s phone number I called her and told her the news that there is compensation money waiting for her and that we can help her receive this money. M’s reaction was very emotional: she did not want anything to do with her trafficker, not even compensation money. I felt that she didn’t believe me and that she was even scared of me. I asked her to think about it before she signs a concession letter, saved her phone number and decided to think about what I want to do.

The following day, I called M again, and after a long conversation, I succeeded in gaining her trust. We contacted our partner IOM in Moldova, who were willing to provide her with the necessary assistance even though five years have passed since the case. They integrated her into a rehabilitation and professional training program in order to prevent her from searching for a “tempting” job abroad under uncertain conditions. Today, M is a mother to a child, lives in Moldova and is unemployed. Soon she will be receiving $ 1,700 that will give her hope and opportunity to begin a new life, and even acquire a profession or higher education.

This year, within the framework of the Fighting against Trafficking and Prostitution in Women, we dealt with 12 cases of compensation for trafficking victims. Since 2002, we helped 52 trafficked women receive compensation. The process of obtaining compensation money is very complex, and sometimes we are unable to locate the entitled women. Some of these women were trafficked in 2002 and were deported, and there is no hint as to her location. In other cases, the women themselves are not willing to receive any money from their traffickers or they do not believe or trust us, as was the initial case with M.

We believe that compensation money will prevent trafficking victims from travelling abroad and falling for suspicious tempting jobs. The compensation money enables them to begin a new life in their own community and to live in dignity.

We would not have been able to help victims receive compensation without our partner organizations in the Former Soviet Union who help us and are willing to sign a power of attorney or identify a trafficking victim. We wish to thank the IOM branches in Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Belarus, local NGOs in Ukraine, ISTIQBOLLI AVLOD - an NGO network in Uzbekistan, the Angel Coalition in Moscow, and WINROCK Khabarovsk and other organizations, all of whom are involved in helping trafficked women receive their compensation and make great efforts in their work. Without their help and fruitful cooperation, we would not succeed in this important work.”

Of course, all of these activities would be impossible to implement without the support of our funders. We would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks and appreciation to the foundations and individuals for their trust in our work.