In 2009, a Palestinian non-profit organization called SAWA released a report

titled Trafficking and Forced Prostitution of Palestinian Women and Girls: Forms of
Modern Day Slavery that researched and exposed the problem of sex trafficking in the
occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This
report brought to light the complex patterns and behaviors of the Palestinian human
trafficking sphere, one that was largely ignored before then. While sex trafficking had
been rampant in the region for generations, the SAWA report was the first open reporting
done on the issue, other than small local newspaper articles citing specific cases.
In Palestine, sex trafficking is a taboo issue that isnt talked about, despite the fact
that the police are largely aware of the activity. The goal of the SAWA report was to
highlight the issue so that the Palestinian authorities would enact changes, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) would know how to combat the problem, and the
practice of placing the blame on the victimswho are often arrested for prostitution
despite being forced into it, and are shunned by their communitieswould end.
The report describes the four main patterns for trafficking in the oPt: from Israel
into the West Bank, from the West Bank into Israel, from the Gaza Strip into Israel, and
within the West Bank itself (UNIFEM 12). The trafficking involves crossing both
national borders (i.e. within oPt) and international borders (i.e. to and from Israel).
Because of the Israeli occupation in the oPt, there is geographical fragmentation of the
Palestinian territory which makes the trafficking routes hard to track and therefore hard
for authorities to target (UNIFEM 12). However, most of the traffickers bring their
victims to East Jerusalem or Ramallah, where they are forced to work in brothels as sex
slaves.

Most of the victims are women in their early 20s, but the victims range from girls
12 years old to women in their 50s. Surprisingly, the majority of victims are students or
graduates from Palestinian universities and do not come from uneducated or
impoverished backgrounds. Victims are also likely to be married, and were often abused
by their fathers. Often, the victims run away from their abusive husbands or fathers and
are then found by men who promise to help them find a job and a place to liveonly to
kidnap them and sell them into the sex slave trade.
Even more shockingly, the brothels are run mainly by Palestinian women, not
men (UNIFEM 11). Almost all of the brothel managers are former prostitutes turned
pimps (UNIFEM 16). Unlike their victims, they typically have a relatively low education
level. They are also usually married, and their husbands know of their business.
Sometimes victims are sold by their own families. In one 2006 report, two sisters
ages 13 and 14 were sold by their father to two boys, ages 16 and 17, for a sum of 1,150
Jordanian Dinarsapproximately $1,621 US Dollars. One of the girls was found by the
police after being sent to the hospital for intensive bleeding, where it was discovered that
she was pregnant. The boys were sent to jail for a month, and the case was closed. The
girls were then married off to the same boys (UNIFEM 11).
In another report, an 18-year-old woman was forced into twelve urfi, or
temporary marriages, by her father. He sold her to her husbands, forced her to divorce
them after two to three months, and then took the money and gold that her husbands had
given to her (UNIFEM 19).
Other victims are sold into brothels that are disguised as hotels or cleaning
companies and therefore have the status of a legal business. If a client calls the cleaning

company, a woman will be sent to his house and clean it before having sex with him.
While these brothels are common, a good portion of the brothels are entirely underground
businesses.
While the SAWA report helped unveil the taboo issue of sex trafficking in
Palestine, little has been done to remedy the issue since. Human trafficking and forced
prostitution is illegal under both Palestinian and Israeli law, but the areas overlapping
jurisdictions make law hard to understand and enforce. Furthermore, at the time of the
report, police officers traditionally didnt recognize the coercive nature of the trafficking
and held the view that most of the victims entered into prostitution by their own will
(UNIFEM 15). They would therefore arrest the sex workers upon their discovery. This
was made worse by the fact that many pimps are allegedly close with the authorities, and
are thus able to avoid having legal actions brought against them. The SAWA report cites
a lack of shelter houses and resources for victims, as well as the social ostracization they
face by their families and communities, as further reasons that many victims do not speak
out or seek help.
More needs to be done to solve the problem of human trafficking in Palestine.
While Israel enacted the Anti-Trafficking Law of 2006, which prohibits all human
trafficking, the human trafficking laws are much less powerful in Palestinian territories
(Hepburn). A new oPt criminal code is in the process of being drafted, but until then, no
unified legal framework exists. In Article 312 of the Jordenian penal code, which
currently applies to some territories, brothel owners are only given up to 6 months in
prison and a relatively small fine of 100 Jordanian Dollars if found managing a brothel

(UNIFEM 20). Spousal rape is not recognized in any Palestinian territory (Occupied
Palestinian Territory).
Palestine has taken some international initiatives to combat human trafficking,
such as the Palestinian National Authority giving support to the Global Initiative to Fight
Human Trafficking of UN Office on Drugs and Crime and also supporting Resolution
A/HRC/RES/14/2 of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which addresses
Trafficking in persons, especially women and children: regional and subregional
cooperation in promoting a human rights-based approach to combating trafficking in
persons (14th Session). However, since Palestine is not an independent state, it is
unable to ratify UN International Conventions. It is also not included in the U.S. State
Departments annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which gives each country a human
trafficking score on a tier from 1 to 3. Therefore, it is hard to identify whether the
problem is improving in Palestine or getting worse, as these watchdog measures do not
report whether Palestine is compliant with anti-human trafficking laws or not. Little
updated information after the SAWA report is available. Until more reporting is done
and more measures are taken to crack down on human trafficking in Palestine, both by
Palestinian authorities and international initiatives, the issue will continue to go largely
unmonitored.
Works Cited
"14th Session of the Human Rights Council: Resolutions, Decisions and Presidents
Statements." United Nations Human Rights Council. United Nations, 2015. Web.
Hepburn, Stephanie, and Rita J. Simon. Human Trafficking around the World: Hidden in
Plain Sight. N.p.: Columbia UP, 2013. Print.
Occupied Palestinian Territory: Status of Girls in the Middle East and North Africa
(2011): n. pag. United Nations Children's Fund, Regional Office for the Middle East and

North Africa, Oct. 2011. Web.

"The Occupied Palestinian Territory West Bank and Gaza Strip." A Human Rights Report
on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (n.d.): n. pag. Protection
Project, 2012. Web.
"Report Lifts Veil on Trafficking, Prostitution of Palestinian Women." CNN. Cable News
Network, 11 Dec. 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.
"Trafficking in Persons Report." Trends in Organized Crime 10.1 (2006): 5-15. U.S.
Department of State, July 2015. Web.
UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Trafficking and Forced Prostitution of
Palestinian Women and Girls: Forms of Modern Day Slavery, June 2008, available at:
http://www.refworld.org/docid/4bcc13862.html
!