US recognition for Israel's crackdown on human trafficking

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2012-06-22

Israel's crackdown on human trafficking has improved over the past year and reached an all-time high, according to the US State Department's 2012 Trafficking of Persons report published Wednesday.

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The US State Department raised Israel's rating to Tier 1, which signifies a country that has fully complied with the minimum norms in combating trafficking. Israel has risen from a Tier 2 watch-list country in 2006, with "high or increasing numbers of trafficking victims" that didn't meet international trafficking standards, to one on par with other Western countries.

However, the report said Israel remains "a destination country for men and women subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking," but the government "fully complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, including "sustained strong law enforcement actions against sex trafficking and strong overall prevention efforts during the year."

The report has criticized Israel's treatment of the rising number of migrants and asylum-seekers from Sudan and Eritrea. The US State Department found shortcomings in the protection of "foreign workers, foreign migrants, and asylum seekers arriving from Egypt who were forced into sexual servitude or forced labor during their captivity in the Sinai."

Identification and provision of medical treatment for victims of trafficking was insufficient, the report said.
A nun working in Israel was singled out for praise for her work among trafficked people.

Azezet Habtezghi Kidane, who is Eritrean but lives with her order in Jerusalem and volunteers with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, was one of 10 individuals from around the world whom the State Department recognized Tuesday as an anti-trafficking "hero."

She received the honor for her work of recording and raising awareness regarding the plight of African migrants who have been tortured, raped and held for ransom by Beduin tribes in Sinai, who smuggle them across Egypt to reach Israel.

Source: United States News.net

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