- The 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, released by the US State Department, classified Israel as a “tier two” country for human trafficking, meaning that a significant amount of human trafficking takes place in Israel. Other tier two countries include Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, India, China, and Russia.
- Israeli NGOs estimate that between 500-600 women a year are trafficked illegally into Israel for sex.
- Men in Israel make an estimated one million visits to prostitutes every month.
- Israel’s prostitution and sex trafficking industry brings in between $500,000,000-$750,000,000 a year.
- The average age of a “woman” who enters into prostitution in Israel is between 12-13.
- Since the 1990s, approximately 25,000 women have been trafficked across the Israel-Sinai border to be sold for sex in Israel.
- Of the women who were trafficked into Israel from other countries ⅓ were told they would be dancers, ⅓ domestics, and ⅓ nannies.
- Elem – Youth in Distress, an Israeli nonprofit, identified 626 youths, some as young as 12, who were sold for prostitution in 2011. This is compared to the 126 that they identified in 2010.
- According to 2010 report by the Knesset’s Research and Information Center, the police have opened only two cases against customers of juvenile prostitutes and both of of the cases were closed.
- The 2010 Knesset Report also showed that between 2000 – 2009 only eight cases were opened for pimping minors and three of them were closed. Additionally, criminal charges were not pursued in 19 of the 35 cases that police opened during that period for commercial exploitation of a minor.
