t week at the Hotline for Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel (hotline.org.il). The Hotline for Migrant Workers does much more than answer phone calls from migrant workers - their main mission is (a) promoting the rights of undocumented migrant workers and refugees and (b) eliminating trafficking in persons in Israel. They also have been working a lot recently on behalf of asylum seekers, mainly from Eritrea and Sudan, to get them refugee status.
So far, I'm having a great time in Israel and at work! Aside from the recent political controversy, my first few days were restful and I have been exploring the city and getting acclimated here. I went to a giant Hebrew book fair, the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade (right), and wandered the marketplaces in Tel Aviv and Yafo.
My first night out in Tel Aviv, fliers for prostitutes were left in the windows
of my friend's car. I had heard of this but never seen it before - it's illegal in Israel to advertise sexual services in newspapers (partly thanks to the work of the Hotline for Migrant Workers) but it's still allowed when the ad is separate from other materials. (right). Prostitution itself is no longer a crime in Israel, according to my supervisor - the women who are discovered in sex work are given training and help, not treated as criminals. Brothels, however, and the pimps and traffickers that run them, are outlawed. Seeing the fliers made me feel dismayed but also gave me more conviction - there are some major societal problems in Israel and I want to help solve them while I'm here (as much as I can).
One thing I learned that made me proud of our own government is that until the 2000s, trafficking in Israel was rampant and barely mentioned in Israeli law. Then the US State Dept. started classifying countries in three tiers according to the way they dealt with trafficking in their territory, and Israel was in the bottom tier, threatening their U.S. aid. Because of this threat, the Israeli government severely cracked down on human trafficking and raided many of the brothels in South Tel Aviv which were only a few blocks from where our office is located.
of my friend's car. I had heard of this but never seen it before - it's illegal in Israel to advertise sexual services in newspapers (partly thanks to the work of the Hotline for Migrant Workers) but it's still allowed when the ad is separate from other materials. (right). Prostitution itself is no longer a crime in Israel, according to my supervisor - the women who are discovered in sex work are given training and help, not treated as criminals. Brothels, however, and the pimps and traffickers that run them, are outlawed. Seeing the fliers made me feel dismayed but also gave me more conviction - there are some major societal problems in Israel and I want to help solve them while I'm here (as much as I can).One thing I learned that made me proud of our own government is that until the 2000s, trafficking in Israel was rampant and barely mentioned in Israeli law. Then the US State Dept. started classifying countries in three tiers according to the way they dealt with trafficking in their territory, and Israel was in the bottom tier, threatening their U.S. aid. Because of this threat, the Israeli government severely cracked down on human trafficking and raided many of the brothels in South Tel Aviv which were only a few blocks from where our office is located.
A sad thing about working in the office is the constant stream of migrant workers and asylum seekers who call and visit, and often the other employees have to explain to them that their hopes to stay in Israel or get a relative or friend released from a detention center are unlikely at best. Many people call the Hotline from prison, and sometimes after the legal department here spends all this time on their case, an unsympathetic judge will declare that it's really not that dangerous in their home county after all, and order a deportation procedure. Israel, which has been the destination of several thousand refugees in recent years, does not have a workable system in place for granting asylum, and many of these refugees have ended up in in detention centers near Tel Aviv or near the Israel-Egyptian border. Sometimes groups of refugees reach the Israeli border and are sent back through the Sinai desert that they just traveled through - and worse, to face the Egyptian border guards who have a policy of shooting refugees to stop them from reaching the border. (link)
Next week I'm going with one of the two lawyers who work here to court to watch his argument for a client who is seeking asylum status, and then on Thursday several other volunteers and I will be trained to interview migrant workers and asylum seekers in a detention center. The goal is to construct a case for them to stay or be released, and sometimes hopefully we will be able to find representative cases that will be useful for changing the law as a whole.
I am learning SO much here - not just about Israeli law and migrant workers but about the political situation in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan (among other countries) and the systems in place for migrant workers in many other places around the world, which we are going to put together as a potential model for revising the Israeli system. Looking forward to the next two months!
1 comment:
Excellent post, Laura! It sounds like you're really going to get a lot of this internship. Wish I was there!
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