Social workers patrol streets (Illustration)
Photo: Gabi Menashe
Tel Aviv offers prostitutes a home
Municipality comes up with new plan to help hundreds of prostitutes working in Tel Aviv; social workers to patrol prostitution sites offering women warm bed, meal, medical treatment
The Tel Aviv Municipality has come up with a new plan in order to deal with the prostitution prevalent within its borders.
According to the plan, a squad car staffed with social workers will patrol areas that are heavily populated by prostitutes – including Tel Baruch and the old bus terminal – and offer the sex workers a place to sleep, food, and medical treatment.
A shelter is currently being prepared in the city's center, and the project is scheduled to get underway within weeks.
The municipality has been pondering how to deal with what it claims are hundreds of prostitutes working in Tel Aviv, many of whom are forced to sleep on the street on occasion.
The social workers slated to patrol in the squad car are currently working towards creating contacts among the prostitutes, to whom they will later offer the 12 beds being laid out in the safe-house.
Upon arrival the women will receive a warm meal, a shower, and a medical checkup. Those who are later found to frequent the shelter will have a chance to meet with the municipality's social workers, who will attempt to find them more appropriate employment.
"I believe this plan will succeed in liberating some of these women from their current work," says Ruti Sofer, a member of the municipality's social services division and the woman behind the new plan.
"Our professionals are going to the women's place of business and thus creating a foundation of trust. When the shelter opens, I am sure that many of them will come to us."
