Human trafficking in Israel

[1] Identification of victims, criminal justice work and efforts to co-ordinate with business and government agencies has been concerted in reducing this problem in the last decade.

[2] Palestinians and foreign workers, primarily from South and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Former Soviet Union, migrate to Israel for temporary work in construction, agriculture, and caregiving; traffickers exploit some of these workers in forced labor, such as unlawful holding of passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical intimidation.

Israel had been a destination country for women trafficked from Ghana, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Belarus, China, South Korea and perhaps the Philippines for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

NGOs claimed, "the shelters are insufficient to treat the scale of trafficking victims who were not officially identified in Israel, particularly among migrants and asylum seekers arriving from the Sinai.

[4] In February 2013 the newspaper Haaretz successfully sued the Tel Aviv District Court to reveal the name of a major sex trafficker who became a police informer, David Digmi.

Victims in this shelter receive medical treatment, psychiatric and social services, stipends, and temporary residency and work permits.

Victims of trafficking receive legal alternatives to their removal to countries in which they may face hardship or retribution, including the issuance of temporary visa extensions.

The Ministry of Education and the Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women has also conducted awareness campaigns in the school system that included seminars for administrators and teachers on sex trafficking.