Israel's sex slaves
Israel of all places has turned into international center of
modern-day slavery
By Roni Aloni-Sadovnik
Ynetnews.com, 04.03.2007
The United Nations recently marked 200 years since the annulment of the
transatlantic slave trade. Yet we must recall that in the year 2007, as us Jews
celebrate our liberation from slavery, there are still 12.3 million slaves
across the world, including at least 3,000 women being traded in Israel – and
another thousands of foreign workers who are subjugated here to a life of
slavery and humiliation.
Turning a person into another person's property and taking away someone's
freedom while taking advantage of their economic helplessness mark the opposite
of democracy. Their very presence in our modern-day world proves that we have
never left Egypt, even though Egypt has left us.
According to estimates by the foreign workers assistance call center, every
month there are about a million "visits" to slaves who are traded into slavery
in Israel. These painful figures prove that we forgot the lesson of history,
which showed us that evil and moral decay spread in societies that turn a blind
eye to this phenomenon – such societies ultimately lose all their values.
The struggle against international crime organizations that run the global
slave trade cannot succeed unless it is undertaken on the local level. Under
this state of affairs, we could expect the Free World's leader – America, the
mother of liberty – to lead the global struggle against slavery. How
disappointing that even those who suffered from slavery in America are no longer
interested in this issue.
For example, Barack Obama, the African-American presidential candidate and
senator from Illinois, declared that thanks to the millions who backed President
Lincoln, there is no longer slavery and no North against South. Is there indeed
no slavery in America today? No slavery in the world? These words illustrate the
deafening silence of world leaders and their priorities when it comes to the
prospering market of woman trade in particular and human beings in general.
Growing like cancer
The institution of slavery is different at different places and times, and
shows a new face in accordance with the socioeconomic and moral-religious
circumstances of every society. At the outset of the third millennium, we can
see how the wealthy and aggressive West subjugates the peoples of eastern
Europe, Asia, and Africa to fulfill its corporeal needs.
However, as a Jewish woman who works against the woman trade in Israel, my
disappointment and anger are not only directed at Obama and his ilk abroad; in
the same breath, I wonder about what is taking place here, with the people that
has been celebrating with devotion for 2,000 years now the Passover holiday to
mark our shift from slavery to liberty.
This Passover, we must tell our children not only about the story of our
enslavement in Egypt and our freedom being robbed for 400 years; we must remind
everyone that the struggle is not over yet. The national trauma of one group of
people enslaving another group of human beings is common to all nationalities
and not only the Jews.
We must talk about the horror of Israel, which pledged never to forget,
turning into the largest international center in the Middle East – and one of
the global leaders – in the export and import of new slavery.
Both societies are charged with the moral decree of leading the battle
against slavery. The sad and painful history of the Jewish people and the
African-American community in the United States is painfully similar, yet the
leaders of those two communities are ignoring the phenomenon of the new slavery,
which is growing like cancer.
During Lincoln's time, the North fought the South, and slaves were imported
from poverty-stricken Africa to serve the white man. Since that time, the
backdrop has changed, but slavery still exists. It has become more sophisticated
and more brutal, and there is no Lincoln who will get up and declare a civil war
against it.
The writer heads the Israeli organization for fighting the woman trade
