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'Women for sale' store highlights sex trafficking in Israel

By Shira Medding, CNN
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'Women to Go' aims to thwart sex trade
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • The women have price tags detailing their age, weight and height
  • The tags also include their dimensions and country of origin
  • The campaign aims to collect enough signatures to pressure the Israeli justice ministry
  • It hopes the ministry will back legislation that makes it a crime for men to go to prostitutes.

(CNN) -- A designer clothing store, a comic book store, a tattoo parlor and a ... women for sale store.

This unusual window display shocked shoppers at a busy Tel Aviv mall last week when among the run-of-the-mill shops, they came across a group of young women standing in a storefront.

On them were price tags detailing their age, weight, height, dimensions and country of origin.

Organizers said the campaign is designed to bring awareness to women trafficking. It aims to collect enough signatures to pressure the Israeli justice ministry to back legislation that makes it a crime for men to go to prostitutes.

Video: Israel's 'Women for sale'
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  • Israel

This legislation is the next important step in the fight against women trafficking, said attorney Ori Keidar, one of the founders of the task force against the problem.

"The legislation against the prostitutes' customers will bring a reduction in the demand for prostitution and it will be a less lucrative business for crime organizations," Keidar said.

"This in turn will bring a reduction in the trafficking of women."

Keidar said the legislation is modeled after similar legislation in Sweden that has drastically reduced trafficking and prostitution.

Over the past decade, about 10,000 women have been trafficked into Israel in what Keidar calls "modern slavery."

The women are locked, beaten, raped, starved and forced to receive 15-30 men a day 365 days a year, according to the attorney.

About three years ago, Israeli police greatly reduced women trafficking by pouring resources into the problem. Security forces have also helped by stepping up patrols on the Israeli-Egyptian border as a result of al Qaeda presence in the Sinai.

This 300-kilometer border was the main route for smuggling women into Israel, Keidar said.

"This legislation against the customers will bring a further reduction in trafficking and with a little more pressure we can make this go away" Keidar said.