Labor MKs Decry ‘Rampant Sexism’ In Human Trafficking Industry

“Bibi and his cronies have done precious little to bring the number of men anywhere near the number of women in this popular field.”

Tel Aviv, August 10 – A group of Opposition lawmakers from Labor held a conference today at which they denounced the disproportionate number of women exploited by the human trafficking industry, and called on the government to work toward more equal representation of men and women in the field.

MK Shelly Yechimovich, who chaired the conference, said the Netanyahu government had done nothing to combat the glaring sexism so rampant in the forced migration, sale, involuntary servitude, sale, and sexual slavery realms in Israel, and vowed to introduce legislation to mandate certain minimums to ensure that men and women are represented in roughly equal numbers.

“It is unconscionable that in the twenty-first century, the region’s only real democracy, a country that prides itself on its protections of human rights in a sea of barbaric regimes, would allow such rampant sexism and gender-based discrimination to occur unchecked within in the human trafficking industry,” said Yechimovich. “Unfortunately, although the Coalition has paid lip service to the idea of equality, Bibi and his cronies have done precious little to bring the number of men anywhere near the number of women in this popular field.”

Yechimovich has been a champion of social issues and gender equality, and laid out the proposed law she intends to submit when the Knesset resumes its legislative activity in the fall. “Women from the former Soviet Union are brought here in great numbers to work in prostitution, or to be forced into marriage,” she noted. “There is no logical reason that men cannot serve in the same capacities. My ‘Equal Representation for Equal Exploitation’ Law will address the yawning gap between men and women in human trafficking, at least as far as Israel is concerned.”

MK Stav Shaffir, also of Labor, welcomed the initiative, and said it represents the same spirit of equal opportunity and social activism that brought her to the Knesset from the economic and social justice protests of 2011. “The vested interests who control the human trafficking market in Israel and beyond have been cozy with the Likud for years,” she explained. “There’s no incentive for them to change, to remedy the injustice of gender inequality they have let fester in the human trafficking industry. That’s why we need Shelly’s measurable, practical law – it sets specific quotas that demand human traffickers exploit more men.”

The proposal has already attracted critics, mainly from Likud. “The idea that the government should step in and regulate what’s available to the consumer when the market is completely consumer-driven is arrant nonsense,” said Likud MK Oren Hazan. “It’s tilting at windmills to try to address this so-called injustice. It’s not as if Ms. Yechimovich knows anything about exploitation of women.”

“She should leave it to the people who have actual experience in the field,” he added.