The Tel Aviv Municipality seeks to end sidewalks littered with prostitution-related buiness cards.
Tel Aviv Municipality to amp up fight against prostitution-related business cards
Tel Aviv Municipality to change policy regardng prostitution-related business card distribution and take 'strong action' against distributors.
Residents and tourists walking the streets of Tel Aviv have undoubtedly enjoyed the Mediterranean landscape and the Bauhaus architecture but there is one noticeable view they probably would have preferred to skip – the plethora of prostitution related business cards that litter the streets of Israel's cultural capital.
The Tel Aviv Municipality recently announced that it would finally change its policy regarding prostitution-related business card distribution and take "strong action" against distributors.
A protest against the prostitution-related business cards that litter the streets of Tel Aviv. (Photo: Ron Barry)
The message was released after years of side-stepping and allocating responsibility to the police by the Tel Aviv Municipality.
As part of the new approach, the municipality will enforce laws regarding maintenance of order and cleanliness targeted against the distributors of the prostitution cards in the public domain and against those who place the cards on parked vehicles.
The Tel Aviv Municipality is stepping up effort to rid tel aviv streets of prostitution-related promotional cards.
The municipality also announced, "frequent and systematic cleaning of streets where there is a tendency to see the tickets on the sidewalks."
The Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women, a division of the Prime Minister's Office, has held a long-standing public struggle in order to end the widespread distribution of the prostitution business cards that have become rampant in the country.
Anyone who has arrived at one of Israel's major cities has become familiar with the cards that amount on parked cars or cover sidewalks.
Israel police have also vowed to step up enforcement against the distributors of the cards, including tracing phone numbers that appear on the cards and raiding apartments and centers associated with them.
Ayalet Weiner, Deputy Attorney of the Tel Aviv Municipality, announced the decision to raise the level of enforcement to Vered Pear Swid, the Executive Director of the Authority of the Status of Women in the Prime Minister's Office, with the hope that the authorities would follow suit.
"The phenomenon is a serious and violent blow to woman and especially to teenagers who are exposed to the cards on the street and get distorted concepts that harm the position of woman," said Weiner.
Weiner said "a more serious struggle that includes hidden cameras to track distributors, and sometimes teenagers" is necessary.
"I interpret it as a form of solicitation for prostitution. It is part of the phenomenon of violence: to pay for a woman is a horrendous form of abuse," Weiner said.
