Banot Behind Bars: Israel's Captive Workers

by Kate Raphael, IWPS - Palestine

posted on QUIT!  on 1-11-2004

Late on New Year's Eve, I was deposited at Hadera Prison to await deportation from Israel. I had been arrested that morning, while filming a demonstration in the Palestinian village of Budrus, the latest site of Israeli destruction of Palestinian land for the sake of the Apartheid Wall. I have lived in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for the last four and a half months as part of International Women'¾s Peace Service, witnessing, documenting and trying to intervene to prevent human rights violations by the army and the police.

When I entered Hadera, I did not know then that I would stay here more than a week. I also did not know about the world concealed inside its walls -- another manifestation of Israel's apartheid policies. Though I should mention that it bears striking resemblance to the system which fills United States prisons with immigrants who have committed no crime except that of seeking jobs or refuge.

I arrived at Hadera at 1:00 a.m. When I finally got situated in the dorm, after a delay because they were missing some piece of my paperwork and had to get it faxed from Givat Zeev (the illegal Israeli West Bank settlement where I met the representative of the Ministry of Interior), the women were partying for the New Year -- Sylvester, they call it here. It was a mild party: television (Russian, of course), cake and tea. Lanetta, from Ukraine, is the trustee here, because she has been here for four months. I asked why and she shrugged."Some problem with the consulate." She showed me my bed, but a few minutes later came to offer tea, so I joined the others. I contributed the cookies I had with me, and tasted their cake. They asked if I had any clean clothes. I admitted I didn't, and they took me to a set of lockers, where there was a massive assortment of things -- clothes, linens, shoes, bags. I took two things that would fit me. They protested it was not enough, but I insisted yes, I could wear them and wash my others. I did laundry and dried it in the drier. No house in the West Bank has a drier. You hang your clothes on the roof, and hope that it you can beat the rain. Lanetta gave me some shampoo, and I took a hot shower. Hadera started to seem a little like heaven. I slept about 3:00 a.m.

There are five other women in my dorm room, with bunk beds like a Jerusalem hostel. Augel is from Uzbekistan, Valentina and Tanya from Moldova, Alvira from Romania and Arletta from Liberia.

Arletta has been here the longest, nearly three months. She came to Israel four years ago with her uncle, who bought her ticket. She lost both parents at age 17, fourteen years ago, when they were murdered in the civil war that has raged ever since. She worked as a housekeeper here, for so many families she can't count them. Some were very kind and trusted her, she says. Others were suspicious and begrudged her even a glass of water or a sneak peak at CNN while she worked. Her house was raided at 1:30 in the morning one night, because some of those who lived there had registered to go home (this gives them immunity from arrest and time to get their affairs together) and gave the address to the police. Three others were arrested that night besides Arletta. They have all gone back to their countries, but she could not because of the war. She has applied for refugee status, but the human rights organizations and United Nations refugee officers are too busy to help her, and the Ministry of Interior is on strike. So she sits, day after day.

When she is able to talk to her friends outside, they give her discouraging news. More and more people are being arrested. Israel wants to be rid of all its foreign workers, though new ones will keep coming to do the work Palestinians are no longer allowed to do in Israel. In July of 2002, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set a goal of deporting 50,000 undocumented workers, or 1,000 every month. On my eighth day in Hadera, Arletta learned that the man who was keeping her things in Tel Aviv had gone to the hospital in Jerusalem and was arrested when he tried to get treatment. About a year ago, her bag containing her passport and a significant amount of money was stolen on the street. Now she fears everything she had left will be stolen because, she says, after someone is arrested in one of the buildings where foreign workers live, the thieves come and break down the doors.

Most of the women here are more like Augel, who crossed into Israel on foot from Egypt, with many other girls. They were brought by a man who paid their fare and kept their passports. Augel and I speak Hebrew, which she has learned fluently in the two years she is here, but I speak very poorly. She can't tell me that much, but she mimes being beaten as she made her way into Israel. Women from war-torn countries, "other war-torn countries," I should say--come here to work:  cleaning houses. Some of them do that, and most of their salaries are kept to pay back the traffickers for their tickets. More of them end up in Israel's thriving sex trade. Israel, unbeknownst to her avid supporters both inside the country and "bachutz" (outside), is one of the leading ports for trafficking of women, especially from Eastern Europe. Three years ago, Amnesty International documented the $1 billion a year sex trade in a blistering report, which concluded, "the steps taken by Israel are insufficient and it is urging the Israeli government to respect its obligations under international law to ensure the human rights of all who are in its territory..."

Israel's response, predictably, has been to crack down on the women, rather than those who profit from trafficking. "Both the government and the traffickers are treating these women as if they do not have human rights. The authorities have a responsibility to take action to protect them against enslavement, deprivation of liberty and violence," Amnesty International said. Continuing the patterns so familiar to us in the U.S., the government and the religious right have unfortunately been supported in this crackdown by some feminist groups, who have welcomed the attack on trafficking and not looked deeply into who is being affected.

Eli Levi, who runs this prison like a repressive boarding school, with sarcasm and a booming voice, admits that most of the women are only there because they do not have their passports; unlike me, they have not been accused of any crime, however minor. Once their passports are provided by the consulate, a ticket will be purchased for them, but the state holds them for a while to see if they can get the women or their friends to pay for the ticket, so if they have no money, it is much longer before they can go home. Nearly all are glad to go.

Everyone is shocked when I say I am American. They are more amazed to hear I am Jewish. Eli says I am "claiming" to be Jewish. He asks if I can prove it. I find it grimly ironic that now we try to prove we are Jewish to take advantage of racist laws, when 60 years ago, others were proving people were Jewish to send them to the gas chambers.

Eli tries to explain to me that this is not a prison, but "custody." Prison, he says, is a police matter, and custody is custody. I answer that the barbed wire and guns preventing us from leaving makes it a prison in my lexicon. When I try to end the conversation, he says, "You are in my place. You cannot do whatever you want. If I tell you to sit down, sit down." Mornings, he or one of the other officers comes into our rooms at 8:15 or so, shouting, "Banot, lakum!", girls, get up. "Nikayon," they demand, clean up, though it is ridiculous, because we have nothing to do all day, you get up, spend half an hour cleaning and the rest of the day sleeping, sitting around, watching television (if you understand Russian), making everything dirty again.

Telephone calls are the big carrot and stick. "Rotzah telefon?", get up, clean up, shut up. It is the thing which keeps you sane and connected to the outside world. Yet it too is set up to cause maximum strife. There are only two pay phones for perhaps 60 women, they are outside and we only get to go outside for an hour or hour and a half each day, except when it rains, when we don't go out at all. So then, of course, squabbles break out over the phone and then everyone is punished by being made to go in early. Access to lawyers is supposed to be guaranteed 24 hours a day, but in fact, women only get to talk to their lawyers during regular phone calling times, unless the lawyer is very persistent or shows up in person. But most of the women cannot afford lawyers anyway.

Male police are in and out of our rooms all the time. Most mornings and nights two or three of them come with a women cop to count us, though I believe that the women actually know how to count to six. Some of the men are polite and knock, though they may not wait for an answer. Others simply walk in when we are sleeping or dressing. They will lift a women's covers if they decide she is sleeping too much. "Banot," girls, they call us always, though a few women, like Marianna from Romania, are grandmothers.

Weekdays at 2:00 p.m., a big luxury bus arrives and women's names are called to go to the airport. Partings are bittersweet. Today, Tania is called. Valentina at first does not get up from her top bunk. She is doubly heartbroken: her friend is leaving, and she, who has a three-year-old daughter in Moldova, does not get to go home yet. Eventually, she gets up and helps her friend pack her collection of lingerie and massive stuffed animals. Tanya strips off the sweat pants and t-shirt that are the only clothes I have seen her wear, and puts on a skin-tight shirt, stockings, slacks and crop-top sweater. She combs her shiny hair, quickly gives her address to her friends, and leads a small procession to the bus. She will spend the night in a holding cell at the airport, and tomorrow fly home.

A few hours later, another bus pulls up -- new arrestees from Jerusalem. The police have just arrested 60 women in a major sweep. After they and their possessions are searched, one of them comes to take Tanya's bed. She is Linia, also from Moldova. She is unlucky. She has been arrested on Wednesday, and there is only one flight a week to Moldova, on Thursday. Linia has at least a week to spend in prison. Hopefully, she has a Walkman and a deck of cards.

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