I got the feeling there was a lot of focus on Muslims, kind of liken the movie 'taken'. Hollywood loves the Muslim / Arab villain, but here's the truth-After World War II and with the creation of the State of Israel, new immigrants, who were occasionally forced to prostitute themselves in order to survive, fueled Israel's sex trade. As in countries all over the world, Israeli sex buyers readily exploited economically and socially disadvantaged populations. Yet, as Israel developed into a wealthy nation, it became economically viable to sustain a sex trafficking industry, and international organized crime quickly recognized a financial opportunity.By the 1990's Israel was established as a destination country for trafficking, and international sex trafficking victims had replaced the local market. Israel's flesh trade was booming and making between half a billion to three quarters of a billion dollars a year. It was a particularly desirable market for traffickers because the purchase of sexual services was, and still is, legal in Israel. This protects traffickers because it makes it difficult to prosecute them and to identify their victims. Throughout the 1990's traffickers acted with impunity and, according to the Hotline for Migrant Workers, smuggled 3,000 women annually into Israel.The women arrived largely from the former Soviet Union, but a small percentage came from South America and Asia. The countries of origin shared two common denominators: a dire economic situation and women desperate to provide for themselves and their families. Traffickers promised women work as au pairs, waitresses, or medical masseuses. A few were told that they would work as exotic dancers and fewer were told that they would be prostituted. No one was told that upon arriving in Israel their documents would be confiscated and they would be bought, raped, and transported to brothels where they would service between 15 to 20 men a day.By the late 1990's, sex trafficking to Israel had reached such dizzying heights that the world began to take notice. In 2001, the US State Department released its first Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report and ranked Israel as a Tier 3 Nation – the report's lowest possible ranking. A Tier 3 country is defined by its high level of trafficking and its failure to take significant strides to combat it.Israel's ranking was a public shaming at the hands of its most prominent ally. Moreover, it carried potentially massive economic consequences. According to the U.S.'s Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, Tier 3 nations would be subjected to strict economic sanctions. As Israel receives $3.1 billion in annual assistance from the U.S., the fallout would have been explosive.The TIP Report and increasing pressure from NGOs, such as ATZUM's Task Force on Human Trafficking, served as a catalyst for change. Since its Tier 3 ranking, Israel has passed a comprehensive anti-trafficking law, which imposes a maximum 16-year sentence upon traffickers. The Ministry of Welfare also began to operate two shelters for trafficking victims and Israel established SAAR, an anti-trafficking police unit.Thanks in part to these measures, government and non-governmental sources agree that sex trafficking in Israel has been reduced. Yet, though Israel was recently awarded Tier 1 status, many would argue that it has not gone far enough in its efforts to reduce sex trafficking and prostitution. In 2011, SAAR was disbanded, and many victims of trafficking find themselves in prison instead shelters because the two state-funded shelters are overflowing.Moreover, while Israel recognizes sex trafficking as a serious crime, it still considers prostitution to be a choice made by some women. This attitude flies in the face of reality. According to Saleet, a hostel for prostituted women in Tel Aviv, the average age of entrance into prostitution in Israel is 14, and "coincidentally" 90 percent of prostituted persons are victims of incest, rape, and abuse. This past February, Israel's Ministerial Committee nearly brought Israel one step closer to eradicating prostitution when it unanimously approved legislation that would have prohibited the purchase of sexual services and decriminalized the provider. This legislation had the potential to drastically reduce demand and assist the 15,000-prostituted persons, a third of whom are children, trapped in Israel's sex trade. However, it was ultimately not passed into law.Prostitution and trafficking have been a shameful part of Israel's narrative for far too long. In order to continue to move forward, Israel must recognize prostitution, as well as sex trafficking, as the form of modern slavery that it is.

Just caught 'The Price of Sex' at the Human Rights Watch Festival in NYC. It's by photojournalist turned first time documentarian, Mimi Chakarova. The documentary begins with Super 8 footage of Ms. Chakarova as a child in her native Bulgaria. Ms. Chakarova came to the United States with her mother right after the fall of Communism around 1990. The film chronicles the gut-wrenching stories of young Eastern European women who were sold into sexual slavery as prostitutes after being lured to other countries with the false promise of jobs and financial remuneration.Just as shocking as the sex trade itself is the economic condition of the countries these women come from. Ms. Chakarova takes us back to her home town in Bulgaria (where that Super 8 footage was shot) and it's almost completely deserted and boarded up. Mostly elderly people live there as most of the younger people have fled to more prosperous countries where they have a chance to earn a living. After the fall of Communism, destitute Eastern European women were offered sums of $500 and a chance to work in Western Europe as (for example) housekeepers. The immigration paperwork was taken care of by mysterious handlers who arranged for their passage. When the women got off their planes, they found themselves in countries such as Dubai and Turkey where they were immediately put in the hands of a pimp and locked up in brothels where they were forced to service men of all classes and nationalities, sometimes up to fifty per day.'The Price of Sex' features interviews with a few of these women who were lured into prostitution, some who remain as prostitutes to this day and others who managed to escape. One such woman who did manage to escape told of a harrowing tale of climbing out a window onto a drain pipe, only to find herself losing her grip and falling three stories to the ground. Even after enduring semi-paralysis, she was forcibly returned to the brothel where she had to service men while still partially paralyzed and in great pain. After finally being deported after a police raid to her native country, she recounts her tragic tale, noting that she was horribly naive when lured away to a foreign land at such a young age, without ever suspecting that she had been a victim of a nefarious plot.In addition to Bulgaria, Ms. Chakarova takes us on a harrowing ride through major centers of the sex trafficking trade including Moldavia, Turkey, Greece and Dubai. Moldavia appears to be one of the source countries where young women are easily lured into sexual slavery as the prospects of finding a legitimate job there are slim. While international money pours into Eastern European government coffers to fight sex trade trafficking, one anti-trafficking administrator admits that most of the foreign aid is used to support the burgeoning bureaucracy in these countries and none of it to the actual victims themselves.Turkey appears to be the center of the sex trafficking trade and even though it's a Muslim country where prostitution is supposedly prohibited, it's openly practiced there. Ms. Chakarova was only able to to interview one police official, a detective in an anti-trafficking unit in Greece. The detective indicated that his efforts were stymied by corruption within the police department itself as many officers permitted the sex trade to remain unimpeded as they accepted bribes including the utilization of the services of the prostitutes themselves. At great personal risk, Ms. Chakarova interviewed two johns who also happened to be police officers who not only frequented prostitutes in their native Greece but in Eastern European countries as well, where the price for their services was considerably cheaper. The officers' comments were illustrative of the worldwide culture of denial when it comes to their responsibility for the physical and psychic toll of the victims of sexual slavery.Despite officially prohibiting prostitution, Dubai looks the other way as prostitution is integral to its economy. Due to its burgeoning economy, there is an entire class of self-employed prostitutes who cater to the upper echelons of Dubai society as well as an international clientèle. This doesn't prevent sex traffickers from working there as well, as there is still a significant class of women from other countries who have been lured there and are now forced to work in degrading conditions in local brothels.Ms. Chakakova worked on this documentary for seven years before its release. Her life's work is now devoted to raising awareness in regards to sex trafficking all over the world. As the film makes clear, not all the victims of sex trafficking have a desire to escape the world they were imprisoned in. For some, it's become a way of life as they see no alternative to their current daily existence. Others who did manage to escape, face the stigma of their neighbors, who have little sympathy for their past life as a prostitute.Until the economic circumstances begin to brighten in these Eastern European countries (along with a lessening of attendant corruption), it is unlikely that the sex trafficking trade will abate in the near future. During a Q&A at the Human Rights Watch screening, the brave and intrepid Ms. Charakova, urges all interested parties to check out her website, priceofsex.org, where more information can be garnered about this fascinating but tragic state of affairs.