The underground nature of trafficking leads most of its victims to be unidentified for long periods of time, and some are not found until it is too late. Therefore, the presenters embarked on a pilot project aimed at significantly widening the pool of persons equipped with identifying trafficking victims. The pilot identifies four key fields: hospitals, police officers, municipal patrols, and rehabilitative organizations. If the professionals in these fields are aware of signs that the people before them could be victims of sex trafficking they could act accordingly, in a trauma-informed and potentially life-saving manner. Specifically, the pilot engages in a city-based model which has garnered success in various case studies. The city-based model focuses on developing both expertise and multi-sectorial cooperation on a local level, in order to create new channels for identifying and assisting victims that build on the already-existing municipal ecosystems. The pilot also offers a unique opportunity to assess municipalities’ impact, especially when the State’s focus is elsewhere, as in this case due to Israel’s ongoing war. The presentation outlines how the pilot was built and why the key fields, and cities, were chosen, as well as how the pilot is being implemented and measured. The presentation reviews some of the key materials taught in the workshops, which address both characteristics of sex trafficking as well as trauma-informed responses, so that attendees may gain insight on practices and trends.
Trigger Warning: This presentation contains information (written, spoken, or visual) that may be triggering or (re)traumatizing to attendees.
Eden Farber is a lawyer specializing in international human rights. She holds an LLB, and is studying for her LLM in public law at Tel Aviv University. She acts as the Task Force against Human Trafficking & Prostitution’s Anti-Trafficking Coordinator, organizing the victim recognition pilot and other initiatives.
Naama Sabato is a clinical social worker specializing in trauma. She manages the program for undocumented women in prostitution and trafficking victims at the NGO Lo Omdot Mineged. As an on-call social worker at Ben Gurion Airport, Naama co-developed a unique model for identifying trafficking victims, focusing on trauma-informed approaches.