'I Made a Huge Mistake with My Life' – The Harms of Prostitution as Mis-reflected in Israeli Law

תקציר

Israeli case law reveals different images of women in prostitution. Here is, for example, the victim in Yuri Dorov v. The State of Israel, who was described by the Israeli Supreme Court as humiliated, deprived of dignity, exploited, commoditized and objectified individual. Yet other Israeli Supreme Court rulings suggest images of women in prostitution as free-willed individuals, engaging in a “transaction between two adults, aware of what lies ahead." Such transactions are perceived by the Court as legitimate, though somewhat sleazy, as famously described by the late Supreme Court Judge Mishael Cheshin while referring to a defendant who engaged in prostitution –– “I will not dine with her at my Sabbath table, but I don’t think she should be imprisoned.” Similar images of prostitution as a basically legitimate occupational choice are present in a controversial 2016 Tel-Aviv Municipal Court judgment, which ruled that although running brothels is illegal according to Israeli penal law, this law will not be enforced if the women that offer the sexual services run themselves the brothel in question.<br><br>Who, then, is the Israeli woman in prostitution that faces the courts, and how do the courts conceptualize the meaning of her being a woman in prostitution? Prostitution related issues, such as the conflicting demands to legalize it, to criminalize it, or to criminalize solely the man paying for sex (following the Nordic model) are constantly brought up and debated in court hearings, parliamentary sessions, expert panels, academic forums and the media. Within these debates, women in prostitution are sometimes described as free agents, bearing full responsibility for incurred harms, and sometimes as victims of exploitive social construction.<br><br>As we put forward, it is imperative that prostitution will be richly conceptualized in the legal arena. In order to responsibly do that, policy makers are obliged to thoroughly address the issue of harms inherent to prostitution.<br><br>Worldwide, courts constantly face the need to conceptualize harms not yet recognized by statutory or case law. Such harms can be a product of technological innovation or a product of social development in the dynamic and globalized 21st century societies. Courts legally conceptualize such unrecognized harms in order to achieve socially desired goals as well as legal remedies. When doing so, courts assert that the state, via its legal system, has the responsibility to provide an adequate protection to its citizens from various harms, both in the private and public spheres. Such assertion is no less relevant in regard to the harms of prostitution, which so far, are almost invisible to the legal eye.<br><br>At this point, it should be asserted that Israeli courts adamantly confront human trafficking. Yet, they hardly make an effort to confront or even to recognize the full range of prostitution related harms. In this article we shall attempt to uncover what the courts’ gaze may be missing.