PREVENTION
The government strengthened anti-trafficking prevention efforts. The justice ministry’s anti-human trafficking unit coordinated interagency efforts, including the high-level interagency group and give working groups. The draft second national action plan remained under review for a second year.Authorities made efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex, but not for forced labor. Authorities and NGOs maintained an awareness-raising campaign on sex trafficking. NGOs advocated for an independent national rapporteur to monitor government anti-trafficking efforts. The government issued robust guidelines for the employment of domestic workers employed by foreign diplomats in Ireland to prevent their exploitation.The government provided anti-trafficking training or guidance for its diplomatic personnel.The government provided anti-trafficking to Irish defense forces prior to their deployment abroad on international peacekeeping missions.

ISRAEL: Tier 1 
Israel is a destination country for men and women subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking and, to a much lesser extent, a source country for women subjected to sex trafficking. Low-skilled workers primarily from Asia, Eastern Europe, and West Africa migrate to Israel for temporary contract labor in the construction, agriculture, caregiving, and fishing industries; some of these workers are subjected to forced labor.The average recruitment fee paid by migrants to labor recruiters is $8,400. An international organization reported in 2014 abuses endured by Thai men and women in Israel’s agricultural sector, some of which constitutes forced labor. In 2013, men from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and India worked under harsh conditions on fishing boats, some of which constitutes human trafficking distinguished by isolation, long working hours, and withheld salaries. Caregivers are highly vulnerable to forced labor due to their isolation inside private residences, high recruitment fees, and their lack of protection under labor law. Women from Eastern Europe, Uzbekistan, China, Ghana, and to a lesser extent South America, as well as Eritrean men and women, are subjected to sex trafficking in Israel; some women arrive on tourist visas to work in prostitution but are subjected to sex trafficking. Some Israeli women and girls may be victims of sex trafficking in Israel. Since 2007, thousands of African migrants have entered Israel irregularly from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Many of these migrants were kidnapped along the Eritrea-Sudan border or within Sudan and subjected to severe abuses, including forced labor and sex

trafficking, at the hands of criminal groups in the Sinai before reaching Israel. Due to the construction of a fence along the Israel- Egypt border and an aggressive Egyptian military campaign, the flow of these migrants arriving in Israel has nearly ceased—dropping from 10,000 in 2012 to 21 in 2014.The remaining 43,000 Eritrean and Sudanese migrants and asylum seekers, most of who arrived in Israel from the Sinai, are highly vulnerable to trafficking. In 2014, three Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA) officials were allegedly implicated in visa and passport fraud and suspected labor trafficking involving foreign workers.
The Government of Israel fully complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government sustained law enforcement actions against sex and labor trafficking, although courts continued to give convicted offenders prison terms not commensurate with the severity of the crime.The government continued to implement strong anti-trafficking prevention measures. It continued to proactively identify and refer victims to protection services and cooperated with NGOs to identify potential victims. The government continued to operate long-term shelters—and opened an additional transitional shelter in 2014 —as well as a day center to continue providing protection services to an increased number of identified victims.Though the government continued to identify and release from detention trafficking victims among the detained irregular African migrant population, unidentified victims continued to be susceptible to long-term detention for committing immigration violations.

RECOMMENDATIONS  FOR ISRAEL:
Impose stricter sentences on convicted trafficking offenders, consistent with the gravity of the crime; ensure trafficking victims are not penalized, including by detention, for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to human trafficking, such as immigration violations; continue to strengthen victim identification and referral measures among African migrants in detention facilities, especially those who endured severe abuses in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula; continue to provide protection to all trafficking victims, including shelter and medical and psycho-social treatment; continue to increase and train the number of labor inspectors, social workers, and interpreters in the agricultural, construction, and caregiving sectors; continue to increase training for law enforcement, including police and prison officials, in victim identification, victim sensitivity, and enforcement of labor and sex trafficking laws; increase enforcement of foreign worker labor rights; and increase investigations of sex trafficking of Israeli nationals, including children, and foreign migrants working in the fishing and agricultural sectors.

PROSECUTION
The government sustained strong anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts, but sentences given to some convicted offenders remained inadequate.The government prohibits all forms of human trafficking through its 2006 anti-trafficking law, which prescribes penalties of up to 16 years’ imprisonment for the trafficking of an adult, up to

20 years’ imprisonment for the trafficking of a child, up to 16 years’ imprisonment for slavery, and up to seven years’ imprisonment for forced labor. These penalties are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Under 376A of the Penal Law 5737-1977, holding a person’s passport against their will carries a penalty of three to five years’ imprisonment. In 2014, the police initiated over 250 sex trafficking investigations and arrested 73 individuals in these cases; it also opened 119 suspected forced labor investigations, 15 of which included the withholding of passports.This demonstrated an increase from 2013 when the government conducted 32 sex trafficking investigations and 88 forced labor investigations. In 2014, the government prosecuted 14 sex trafficking offenders, but it did not initiate any new forced labor prosecutions, compared with one forced labor and eight sex trafficking prosecutions in 2013. A 2012 case involving three forced labor offenders and four others charged in connection with forced labor crimes remained ongoing. In 2014, the government convicted 18 sex traffickers and one forced labor offender, compared with 22 sex traffickers and three forced labor offenders convicted in 2013. Courts continued to issue sentences to some trafficking offenders that were not sufficiently serious to deter the crime: the majority of traffickers were given sentences ranging from community service to 40 months’ suspended imprisonment with financial penalties; only two of 19 offenders convicted in 2014 served prison time as a part of their sentences. Since May 2013, the government continued to cooperate with the Government of Georgia in a case involving an Israeli man who sexually exploited a 10-year-old Georgian girl via the internet; the offender was convicted of sex trafficking in January 2015. In February 2015, he was sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment and fined $25,000. The government reported challenges to prosecuting sex trafficking cases, as many victims preferred to be repatriated and were unwilling to remain in Israel to serve as witnesses in the criminal case against their traffickers. In 2014, the government investigated and suspended three PIBA employees for allegations of visa and passport fraud related to foreign workers; one of the cases led to the investigation of seven non-governmental individuals for suspected labor trafficking. The government continued to provide extensive anti-trafficking trainings, workshops, and seminars to officials in various ministries. The government also hosted an anti-trafficking conference, in collaboration with international organizations, for judges from 14 countries in October 2014.