Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (middle) and Justice Minister Gideon Saar (left) at a reception marking Israel’s accession to the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings on June 15, 2022. Photo: Asi Efrati/GPO

Israel has pledged to step up its efforts in the global fight against human trafficking in the face of the growing numbers of victims of a modern-day form of slavery.

“Human trafficking is a cross-border affair and so there is a need for cooperation between countries to fight and defeat it,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said at a reception on Wednesday marking Israel’s accession to the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.

“Signing this treaty is a formal step,” Lapid stated. “We will do everything we can to ensure that there will be practical and effective global cooperation.”

Israel is the 48th country joining the Council of Europe’s binding treaty to prevent trafficking in human beings and prosecute the traffickers. The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, which is an entirely separate body from the EU, has been tasked with protecting democracy, human rights and the rule of law since it was formed after the Second World War. The pan-European group has 46 member states, of which 27 are members of the European Union.

“The State of Israel is the first country outside the Council of Europe to join the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings,” said Israel’s Justice Minister Gideon Saar. “We are committed to continuing our joint work with the Council of Europe and the European Union to combat the dangerous phenomenon of human trafficking.”

The move comes after Israel’s rating was downgraded from Tier 1 to Tier 2 in the 2022 US State Department report on human trafficking citing the government’s failure to “fully meet the minimum standards” for the eradication of trafficking. At the same time, it was noted in the report that Israel is “making significant efforts” to tackle human trafficking.

“The government’s victim identification policies sometimes re-traumatized trafficking victims and delayed access to necessary care, at times for years,” the report charged. “In addition, the government decreased overall efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers.”

In 2020, the Israeli government convicted 12 traffickers – including nine for adult sex trafficking, two for forced labor, and one for child sex trafficking – compared with 17 traffickers a year earlier, according to the report. Eritrean and Sudanese male and female migrants and asylum-seekers are highly vulnerable to fall victims of sex and labor trafficking in Israel due to their economic hardship, the report said. Additionally, traffickers subject women from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, China, and Ghana, to sex trafficking in Israel.

NGO La Strada International warned in a report last month that as the war in Ukraine carries on, the millions of dispersed refugees, who are mainly women and children fleeing the war-torn country run an increased risk of falling victim to human traffickers.

“The scale of human trafficking is growing every year,” said Lapid. “It especially increased against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic with the disgraceful taking advantage of social and economic distress.”

Lapid added that 80 percent of the estimated millions of victims of human trafficking are women.

“The fact there are still millions of people in our world suffering from modern slavery is inexplicable and intolerable,” Lapid declared. “We refuse to be bystanders. Part of our DNA, of our national memory, is the world’s silence in the face of injustice.”

“As Jews, as Israelis, as human beings… we have an obligation to fight this,” he asserted.