"The banter and lightness that gripped me this afternoon was replaced by a heavy feeling every time after training at the beach I come across an unfortunate creature standing there on the edge of the sidewalk, waiting.
Definitely a woman, definitely a girl, horribly thin, a well-kept short haircut, delicate makeup, a beautiful face. Every day we forget these poor people, the girls whose fate has been cruel to them and they find themselves working on the road. Yes, it turns out there are more like that.
Once, in another period of my life, when I was patrolling the streets, I encountered a crowd
Today I already forgot about their existence but it turns out that they exist, these ghosts.
This girl/woman reminded me of the cruelty of life, the decisions these girls make that later determine what their short lives will look like. We have to say to these lost girls that we ran around all night looking for them, tomorrow I will look into ways to help. The street prostitutes in Haifa are not a hazard."
Attorney Shari Israeli from Haifa wrote this status on her Facebook page recently and sparked a poignant public debate.
Israeli attorney: The traffic and criminal field recently engaged in voluntary assistance to the "Ofek Neshi" prostitute rehabilitation hostel, which is operated by the welfare department of the Haifa municipality.
During one of the morning runs, an Israeli lawyer came across an expatriate, a young woman who seemed to need help
She decided to take action and turned to the welfare department, which is how she arrived at Beit Ofek Neshi, which treats and rehabilitates street prostitutes in a wide variety of treatment programs.
Female Horizon Project It is a hostel established by the municipality in 2008 and takes care of the rehabilitation of women to get out of the circle of prostitution. It is a daily survival war to disconnect from the street, from the smells, from the trauma of life.
In the hostel they receive care and support, a roof over their heads and above all a warm, loving and caring home.
An Israeli attorney decided to act on their behalf and began volunteering at the site. She was mobilized to assist them in lectures, handling open criminal cases and explaining their legal rights. In the past she was a police prosecutor at the Haifa station, she served for 17 years and the hard scenes brought her back to the days when she was on the other side of the barricade.
Israeli lawyerIsraeli attorney: "Most of them are not at all aware of their rights and representation on behalf of the public defender, they are naturally afraid and suspicious and distrust them, I conduct workshops and lectures for them in the field of violence, sexual harassment and with extreme delicacy.Most of them are in the stages of rehabbing drugs, I'm not surprised, it brought me back to the days when I was a violence officer in the Haifa police, to those days when I forgot they existed and in fact this is the reality. Immediately after I encountered the same prostitute, I made inquiries because I was very shocked. I did not approach her directly. I wanted to help by searching the Internet. I found a protocol of the Haifa City Council in which a discussion was held in the past and claims were made that street prostitution is a hazard that needs to be dealt with, that it disturbs me, and I was filled with anger when I contacted the welfare department and they revealed to me This amazing place, I realized that the Haifa municipality does not think so and has established an amazing therapeutic hostel to rehabilitate those girls and I take my hat off to them.
The sacred goal is to bring them to a normal circle of life and integration into the labor market."
Israeli attorney
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The Ofek Feshi project, assistance to women in prostitution - Haifa and the North
Emergency apartment, rehabilitation hostel for women in prostitution, day center
Contact person: Beatriz Rosen Katz, attorney - project manager
Phone number: Tel: 04-8524238 Mobile: 057-7548869
[email protected]
[email protected]