My parents lived contentedly in a high-rise building in central Israel, until twelve women moved into a top floor apartment. Soon afterward, the elevator began working triple time, with men going up and down at all hours of the day and night. The apartment, formerly occupied by a middle-class family, had been rented out as a brothel.
Israel aims to eliminate its sex trade with a law banning the sale of sex. Justice Minister Yariv Levin recently announced that the Criminal Prohibition of Consumption of Prostitution Services and Community Treatment Bill has been voted into law. The law has been functioning since July 2020 under a trial period, pending study of its effects.
“Turning the prohibition on the consumption of prostitution into a permanent law is a significant step in the fight against this harmful phenomenon. The move expresses our commitment to protecting the victims of the prostitution cycle, and it is a social step of the highest importance,” Levin said.
The law is based on The Nordic Model. Its aims are to criminalize “customers,” decriminalize the prostitute, rehabilitate former sex workers, and create public awareness campaigns. Israel is the eighth country in the world to pass such a law.
The law aims to eliminate exploitation of vulnerable women and and move the public’s view of prostitution from indifference to rejection. Theoretically, it’s working. According to a survey conducted by the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, support for the law increased to 72% in 2024, compared to 39% in 2016.
Yet the real picture isn’t all that rosy. Buying sex increased between 2021 and 2024 from 7% to 9% for Jewish men aged 18 to 70, the research found. The researchers attribute this to weak law enforcement. Most “customers” aren’t aware of the law, and while there’s so little enforcement, it’s not likely that they’ll know or pay attention.
As an aside – among the men visiting the upstairs apartment were policemen, my parents said.
There’s little safety in sex work. Better said, there’s no safety at all. Prostitutes risk their physical and mental health many times every day. Often the risk is to their very lives. The average age at death of a prostitute is calculated to be 46 – and that’s generous. Some studies indicate that age 40 is more like it. This is considering violence at the hands of pimps or those buying their services. Illness. Drug addiction. Suicide.
Related: Is sex on an airplane legal?
It’s an underground trade and full data is almost impossible to obtain. How many prostitutes are on Israel’s streets today; how many are minors; where they come from; who “handles” them; how many hidden brothels are operating – answers to those, and to other relevant questions, are yet to be fully discovered.
The Task Force on Human Trafficking & Prostitution provides some hard facts. One that stands out is that 14,000 women, men, transgenders, and minors are prostituted every day in Israel. 3,000 of those are minors. According to them, kids as young as 13 begin their working lives as prostitutes.
The law is meant to punish those who pay for sex, not prostitutes. A man’s mere presence in a brothel makes him liable for a fine of NIS 2,000 (about $700 USD), even if he claims that he wasn’t engaging a prostitute. Whether in a brothel or on the street, he’ll pay double the fine if found paying for sex again. Repeat “customers,” pay up to NIS 70,000, about $25,000 USD. However, they’re given the option of attending an educational course whose objective is to change the offender’s thinking about paying for sex. It would be interesting to know how effective those courses are.
Additions to the new anti-prostitution law include support for women leaving the sex industry, via the health, welfare, education and National Insurance systems. Some originally grass-roots programs have been incorporated into those larger bodies. They offer vocational rehabilitation to prostitutes seeking a new life: courses teaching marketable skills in fields like fashion design, cooking, computer skills and cosmetics. Students learn to manage a budget, and receive psychosocial support. Former prostitutes with physical and psychiatric disabilities may claim financial support from The National Insurance Institute.
While the law relates to prostitution on the ground, the next phase is predictably dealing with sex for pay through dating apps. Exploitation of minors through social media connections is another big, dark issue. Let’s see how soon Israel and the world will catch up with that. In the meantime, if the Israeli law reduces the incidence of women forced into sex work, I’m for it.
And if you’re wondering, my parents moved out of the building.
Images via Wikipedia.
More on protecting women:
