Ruth Sinai
Last August, police arrested Vadim Bartel, 41, on suspicion of engaging a 15-year old girl as a prostitute. The police caught him red-handed, as he sent the girl to a client's home. The client had requested "fresh meat." Bartel was accused of pimping. The client, like others who employed the 14-year-old's services, suffered no legal consequences. This, despite the fact that Clause 203 of the Penal Law stipulates that those who pay for the sexual services of a minor must serve three years in prison.
Enacted in 2000, Clause 203 - the only clause which permits the trial of clients of prostitutes - was added to protect minors from exploitation. But since becoming law, the clause has been applied only once, apparently in the context of a plea bargain. Police maintain that the law has not been implemented because prostitution among minors is rare. But the Elem non-profit organization, which assists youth at risk, maintains there are more than a thousand minors engaged in prostitution in Israel.
In coming days, Elem will mount a media campaign to fight this phenomenon. Ads will attempt to raise awareness of the fact that those who engage in sex with minors are engaging in sex with children.
"The more we decrease demand, the smaller the numbers of minors who offer themselves up will be," says Elem Director Tzion Gabai. "There are thousands of adults who obtain sexual services from minors. We are a masculine, macho society and, in certain cultures, engaging in relations with what is called 'fresh meat' is considered a conquest. All these minors are victims of their life stories and anyone who buys sexual services from them is exploiting their distress."
Elem volunteers work undercover to find these minors on the Internet and in "spa" clubs, often associated with organized crime. According to Gabai's estimates, about a quarter of the acts of prostitution take place in these settings. A volunteer who discovers a minor offering his services invites that minor to contact Elem's hotline or stay in the organization's day facility.
The law raises the question of whether other nations have addressed prostitution by acting against clients. Sweden is the only nation that enacted a law which condemns clientele. But MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz), who established the parliamentary committee to fight trade in women, says that the Swedish law did not actually cause a decline in the industry.
Nevertheless, the nation must attempt to use such law to protect minors, according to Gal-On. "When there is demand, there is supply. Those who procure sexual services from minors must know that they will be punished," she says. In her opinion, procurement of sexual services from minors represents one aspect of a slippery slope: "Those who believe that it is fine to exploit foreign women, because they are not our own, should not be surprised when others begin to use Israeli minors."
Gal-On believes police preferences are misguided. She says they prefer to take on pimps rather than clientele. "In my opinion, clients collaborate with pimps and they are guilty, too."
Police say the number of minors who engage in prostitution is much smaller than Elem estimates. "We do not excuse anyone who is caught red-handed with minors," said Chief Superintendent Suzie Ben Baruch, head of the Youth Division. "But I do not remember a case in the last three years in which a customer was caught red-handed with a minor."
Attorney Naomi Levenkron, of the Hotline for Migrant Workers and the College of Management, recently contacted State Prosecutor Eran Shendar, requesting that police and prosecutors enforce the law. Levenkron received no response to her request, but in response to Haaretz, the Justice Ministry said the State Prosecutor attaches great significance to enforcing laws that protect minors.
That being said, all the examples provided by the ministry involve assault, abuse, and neglect of minors, not prostitution. "Instructions explicitly declare that there is a great deal of public interest in intensive enforcement when there is suspicion of involvement of minors in prostitution," they reported. The ministry did not explain why it does not try clients for engaging in prostitution with minors.
According to Levenkron, the law needs to be changed. The fact that statutory rape of a minor - even if consenual - is punishable by a 20-year prison sentence, but paying for sex with a minor is punishable by only three years is completely distorted.
"Money is the only element that transforms statutory rape into prostitution," she says. "But the crime is the same crime. A man only has to throw NIS 50 at a girl to reduce his sentence by 17 years - if he is sentenced at all."
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