Human trafficking victims not receiving compensation
Ukrainian women who were forced into prostitution in Israel more often than not don’t receive the compensation they’re owed in spite of court rulings. This was the finding of a human rights organization which checked statistics of rulings enforced.
In order to step up the fight against human trafficking involving women from CIS countries, Israeli courts are increasingly imposing fines on pimps and ordering them to pay compensation to their victims. The amounts can reach a thousand a month, which is money that would help the women with rehabilitation and return to Ukraine.
No control over the payment of compensation
However most of the victims do not see this money. Whereas payment of the fine to the State is overseen by the law enforcement agency, nobody monitors whether the compensation payments are made. According to Rita Khaikina from the organization “Woman to woman”, women generally don’t know how to get the compensation. “They don’t know what it’s about, what the conditions are. We look for them through the police, the immigration department, we begin discrete correspondence to get the process of extracting compensation started.”
The human rights defenders suggest preparing a single mechanism of control over compensation. At the end of last year, the Israeli Ministry of Justice came out with an initiative to create a special State fund which would take on itself the obligation to ensure rehabilitation and payment of compensation to victims of human trafficking from Ukraine and other CIS countries.
see also:
• Ukraine doing too little to fight human trafficking
• La Strada: The Government is destroying anti-human trafficking policy
• Has Ukraine’s government forgotten to fight human trafficking?
• OSCE, IOM and La Strada call for adoption of comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation
• Human trafficking: Ukrainians more and more often exploit their fellow citizens
• Ukraine is the main supplier of “human commodities” to Israel
• Plans for single record of human trafficking victims
• Criminal investigation over suspected trafficking involving sailors
• Fears of a rise in exploitation of minors
• Fall in number of victims of human trafficking
• Switzerland to help Ukrainian young people avoid modern slavery
• Dniprodzerzhynsk: arrest on suspicion of human trafficking involving disabled people
• Ukrainian and Belarusian men and boys also victims of human trafficking
