The sex industry in Israel is a prosperous business, creating approximately 25,000 sex for trade transactions daily. The clientele can vary from elite lawyers, doctors, married or religious men that are confident they will never be exposed. Most of the women involved in the sex industry are exploited and enticed by the money they will be receiving in comparison to leisure jobs. Pimps will often hire immigrant women who do not speak the native language, are undocumented, and/or in desperate need of financial security. Israelis are aware of the sex service industry and at times create their own fortune by supplying material for both the hookers and clients. The Russian mafia controls their own prostitution business by recruiting foreign women and exploiting them by taking advantage of their affliction. Prostitutes generate a great deal of money that is often given to their pimps who will share a small percentage with the hooker. The pimp will purchase a women in accordance to her looks and can quadruple his earnings by selling her services. The billion dollar industry is being tackled by the Knesset in forming better regulations in regard to penalizing pimps, trafficking international women and weaker communities that usually turn to prostitution.
Prostitutes are victims of the pimps due to the hardship that lead them to choose selling their body as a form of payment. In “ One Woman's Journey to the Bleak Israeli Underworld - and Back” Alma was emotionally neglected by her family, sexually abused twice, married at the age of 17 and encouraged by her heroine addict husband to pursue prostitution. She was alone once her husband had an affair and her family rejected her, which got her into working for a higher paying prostitution business that would often pay her $1,000 a night or $2,000 with tips. The Russian mafia is in control of the prostitution business in Israel often recruiting uneducated immigrant women according to Rosenthal “ women desperate to escape the collapsed economies of the former Soviet Republics and Eastern Europe.” ( Rosenthal 387) Pimps often hire immigrants because they will do anything for money for the fear of being deported, and will not complain about the split of money as Israeli prostitutes often will. Natalia was an unemployed single mother from Moldova when she answered an ad showing “$1,000 a month a masseur can make in Israel.” (Rosenthal 388) She was then taken on an “Egyptian holiday” which was later deducted from her earnings and smuggled with a group of women into Israel by a man who put them to work in a brothel. In 2001 she gave a speech to the Knesset on Trafficking Women and was later deported.
Locals use the opportunity to create their own business out of the prostitution industry. Advertisements appear in newspapers, alongside restaurants, and billboards selling escort and phone sex services from women as a way of promoting a “sexual supermarket.” (Rosenthal 383) Local vendors even make revenue from supplying prostitutes and clients with condoms, beer, cigarettes. Religious men contribute to a fifth of the loyal customers that visit prostitutes at brothels according to Rosenthal’s testimony. Exploitation is a serious issue being addressed by the Knesset for they do not want recruitment into the growing industry “But as trafficking has subsided, the prostitution industry has flourished because demand for sex services remains steady.” According to Harretz and Rosenthal both sources agree that there are approximately 250 brothels operating in Tel Aviv. (Rosenthal 383) These women are being over worked by being with 10 to 20 clients a day working 12 to 14 hour shifts. These new legislations will hopefully create rehabilitation programs, enforce law upon pimps promoting sex services, and create more resources for women trying to get out of prostitution.
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