Alona, 40, immigrated to Israel with her parents from Ukraine in
the early 1990s. Her circumstances quickly degenerated from working
in a casino to a life derailed by debts, drugs and prostitution.
When she was not in prison, the squalid streets around the bus
station became her home.
“In the streets there was no toilet, no toilet paper,” Alona said.
“I forgot a lot of things, like how to look after myself, to love
myself. I learned to survive.”
Now, in an endeavor as far removed from their former lives as the
gleaming banks and trendy boutiques of Tel Aviv are from the city’s
sleazy subculture, the two, who asked to be identified only by
their first names, recently completed a free course in styling and
the retail clothing business. Along with other former prostitutes
who have received similar training in dress design and sewing, they
are now aiming to find a place in the world of fashion. There is
always demand for sales staff in Tel Aviv’s bustling stores, and
one talented graduate even went on to a professional design school
on a scholarship.
“The course gave me a lot of self-confidence and knowledge,” Aviva
said. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to start something of my own.
When they gave me the certificate — the first in my life — I was
proud of myself. I’d done something positive.”
The idea for the program grew up from the underside of Tel
Aviv.
The program’s initiator, Lilach Tzur Ben-Moshe, was working as a
fashion writer and editor at a leading Hebrew news Web site and
volunteering at the city’s rape crisis center when, four years ago,
she moved to the dilapidated Shapira Quarter near the bus station.
Her squalid new neighborhood exposed her to the full misery of the
sex trade, and she determined to help women to leave it.
“I didn’t want just to answer the phone in the help center,” she
said. “I wanted to offer something more optimistic, more beautiful,
the opposite of that awful world of prostitution.”
With an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 prostitutes in Israel, a country
of about eight million people, antiprostitution campaigners say the
industry has an annual turnover of more than half a billion
dollars. While it is illegal to pimp or to run a brothel,
prostitution is not a criminal offense in Israel. There are efforts
to promote new legislation that would impose criminal penalties on
people who are clients of prostitutes.
Up until a few years ago Israel was a prime destination for
traffickers of women. An estimated 3,000 women per year were
smuggled in, mostly from Eastern Europe, to work in the sex
industry. That number has declined since Israel passed an
antitrafficking law in 2006, according to the United States State
Department Trafficking in Persons report of 2012, and most of
the prostitutes here are now said to be Israelis.
At around the same time as Ms. Tzur Ben-Moshe’s move to the Shapira
Quarter, Israel’s first hostel for women trying to get out of
prostitution and undergoing rehabilitation, Saleet, opened nearby.
Ms. Tzur Ben-Moshe built the first course with Ido Recanati, a
local fashion designer, offering women from the hostel training in
sketching, fabrics and stitching. She then teamed with Iris Stern
Levi, who had worked for 20 years at the rape crisis center. They
founded an association, called Turning the Tables, and now are
directors of the program, whose weekly sessions take place over a
period of several months. Some students come from the hostel; some
via Elem, an Israeli organization for youths in distress; and some
are from a shelter for women straight out of prison.
Financing has come from the National Council of Jewish Women, an
American organization of volunteers and advocates of social
justice, as well as local companies and private individuals. Many
Israelis connected with the fashion industry — designers, fabric
suppliers and the Gertrude fashion house among others — have
donated time and materials.
The efforts, Ms. Tzur Ben-Moshe said, are “our little bit, to show
there’s a way out.”