Enacted in 2000, Clause 203 - the only clause which permits the trial of clients
of prostitutes - was added to protect minors from exploitation. But since
becoming law, the clause has been applied only once, apparently in the context
of a plea bargain. Police maintain that the law has not been implemented
because prostitution among minors is rare. But the Elem non-profit
organization, which assists youth at risk, maintains there are more than a
thousand minors engaged in prostitution in Israel.
In coming days, Elem will mount a media campaign to fight this phenomenon. Ads
will attempt to raise awareness of the fact that those who engage in sex with
minors are engaging in sex with children.
"The more we decrease demand, the smaller the numbers of minors who offer
themselves up will be," says Elem Director Tzion Gabai. "There are thousands of
adults who obtain sexual services from minors. We are a masculine, macho
society and, in certain cultures, engaging in relations with what is called
'fresh meat' is considered a conquest. All these minors are victims of their
life stories and anyone who buys sexual services from them is exploiting their
distress."
Elem volunteers work undercover to find these minors on the Internet and in
"spa" clubs, often associated with organized crime. According to Gabai's
estimates, about a quarter of the acts of prostitution take place in these
settings. A volunteer who discovers a minor offering his services invites that
minor to contact Elem's hotline or stay in the organization's day facility.
The law raises the question of whether other nations have addressed
prostitution by acting against clients. Sweden is the only nation that enacted
a law which condemns clientele. But MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz), who established
the parliamentary committee to fight trade in women, says that the Swedish law
did not actually cause a decline in the industry.
Nevertheless, the nation must attempt to use such law to protect minors,
according to Gal-On. "When there is demand, there is supply. Those who procure
sexual services from minors must know that they will be punished," she says. In
her opinion, procurement of sexual services from minors represents one aspect
of a slippery slope: "Those who believe that it is fine to exploit foreign
women, because they are not our own, should not be surprised when others begin
to use Israeli minors."
Gal-On believes police preferences are misguided. She says they prefer to take
on pimps rather than clientele. "In my opinion, clients collaborate with pimps
and they are guilty, too."
Police say the number of minors who engage in prostitution is much smaller than
Elem estimates. "We do not excuse anyone who is caught red-handed with minors,"
said Chief Superintendent Suzie Ben Baruch, head of the Youth Division. "But I
do not remember a case in the last three years in which a customer was caught
red-handed with a minor."
Attorney Naomi Levenkron, of the Hotline for Migrant Workers and the College of
Management, recently contacted State Prosecutor Eran Shendar, requesting that
police and prosecutors enforce the law. Levenkron received no response to her
request, but in response to Haaretz, the Justice Ministry said the State
Prosecutor attaches great significance to enforcing laws that protect minors.
That being said, all the examples provided by the ministry involve assault,
abuse, and neglect of minors, not prostitution. "Instructions explicitly
declare that there is a great deal of public interest in intensive enforcement
when there is suspicion of involvement of minors in prostitution," they
reported. The ministry did not explain why it does not try clients for engaging
in prostitution with minors.
According to Levenkron, the law needs to be changed. The fact that statutory
rape of a minor - even if consenual - is punishable by a 20-year prison
sentence, but paying for sex with a minor is punishable by only three years is
completely distorted.
"Money is the only element that transforms statutory rape into prostitution,"
she says. "But the crime is the same crime. A man only has to throw NIS 50 at a
girl to reduce his sentence by 17 years - if he is sentenced at all."
Haaretz
