It showed that 65 percent of those polled supported legalizing prostitution and
licensing prostitutes. Sixty percent of those polled said that if the Knesset
legalized prostitution, prostitutes should be granted all the rights of other
Israeli workers.
Thirty-four percent said they would not hire an otherwise qualified person if
they discovered she had worked as a prostitute, while 60 percent said they were
sure or believed they would hire such a person.
A prostitute who had been a victim of trafficking testified that since arriving
in Israel by way of Romania, under a false name, she was bought and sold five
times. She said she was forced to receive between seven and 15 clients a day,
each of whom paid her NIS 150, and all of which was taken by her pimp.
"I was treated like trash, as if I were an object," she said. "I got to the
point where I thought I had no life."
Another prostitute said that after she was arrested by the Immigration Police
and jailed for three months, she sued her pimp and won.
Committee chair Eti Livni (Shinui) said that 98 percent of those employed in
prostitution in Israel were victims of trafficking in women.
The chair of the subcommittee on trafficking, MK Zahava Gal-On, said
prostitutes "don't choose this profession freely, but are sucked into it out of
terrible distress."
