Political cooperation between Israel and Syria is questionable but human rights cooperation proves successful in search for and release of Russian woman forced into sex trafficking
Peace may seem distant, but cooperation between Israel and Syria has already begun. In a rare operation, an Israeli organization assisted in locating a Russian woman who was held against her will in Damascus and forced to work in prostitution.
The story started unraveling when a female activist in a human rights organization in the US who innocently thought that Israel and Syria are at peace called the Israeli feminist organization Isha L’Isha.
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The activist reported about a 30-year-old Russian woman with a husband and two children whose family had economic difficulties.
Sex traffickers offered her to work as a dancer at a Damascus hotel for a gracious salary and in this way fell into a trap.
Upon her arrival in Damascus, the traffickers locked her up in a small room, hit her, extinguished cigarettes on her body, raped her and forced her to work in prostitution.
Her worried husband, who did not succeed in contacting her, searched for a year and finally turned to human rights organizations with a plea to find her.
In its final stages, the story reached the Israeli organization Isha L’Isha in which Rita Chaiken, coordinator of the struggle against sex trafficking took the reigns on the case.
Chaiken took initiative and connected between Russian human rights organizations and a representative in a Syrian human rights organization who she was in professional contact with recently. “I requested to assist in finding this woman,” said Chaiken. Russian human rights organizations and police officers in Syria assisted in searching for the woman as well.
She was recently located at an escort service in Damascus, was released a few days ago and returned to her home in Russia.
Chaiken summed up the case by saying, “I am pleased that there is no conflict between Israel and Syria in the struggle against sex trafficking. I hope that there will also be cooperation between Israeli and Syrian politicians in the near future.”
She expressed her hope that one day she will be able to meet with the Syrian human rights activist who helped locate the woman face-to-face.
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