Ethiopian woman was raped during passage through Sinai, then kept in Israel’s Saharonim prison because women’s shelters had no vacancy.

An Ethiopian migrant who suffered severe sexual abuse and is in her sixth month of pregnancy has been in held in Saharonim Prison since November, but can't be released to a shelter for victims of human trafficking because it is full.

The woman, who became pregnant after being raped, has also been denied permission to have an abortion because the medical abortions committee at Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva said her pregnancy was too far advanced. Yesterday, however, a custody tribunal did agree to release her to a different shelter.

The woman entered Israel illegally from Sinai last November. After she was identified as an Ethiopian citizen, a deportation order was issued, but she refused to return to Ethiopia and has therefore remained in Saharonim.

Last month, during a periodic review hearing before a custody tribunal, she revealed that she was severely sexually abused while crossing through Sinai. A medical examination then found that she was in her fifth month of pregnancy.

"I didn't tell what happened to me in Sinai until now, because I was embarrassed," she told the tribunal. "But once I knew I was pregnant, I wanted to tell the truth.

I was in Sinai for a week. During that week, I was raped by one of the smugglers. He took me to his room in the evening, and there he raped me against my will. I was afraid that if I objected, he would kill me. This was repeated for three days straight.

"I don't want to give birth. I want to have an abortion, and am asking for your help," she told the custody tribunal.

In response, Judge Marat Dorfman ordered the woman sent for an abortion immediately. But the in-house hospital committee that must approve all abortions refused, saying her pregnancy was too advanced.

Moreover, a police representative told Dorfman that even though the woman had been recognized as a trafficking victim, the state-funded Ma'agan shelter, which handles such victims, is full, and room isn't expected to open up there until the end of June.

So yesterday Dorfman decided to release the woman to another shelter until a place opens up in Ma'agan.

"I think that in the case before us, in light of the severe sexual abuse the detainee has undergone, her advanced pregnancy and the committee's refusal to approve an abortion, her continued detention in custody is liable to harm her health, and this justifies releasing her to an alternative shelter, with suitable guarantees [that she won't flee]," he wrote.

Ma'agan, in the center of the country, is the only shelter that specializes in trafficking victims, though the one in the north to which the woman was sent also handles such women on occasion. In 2010, Ma'agan took in 33 women, most of whom stayed for three to six months.

The Social Affairs Ministry said Ma'agan has beds for 35 women, plus their children if necessary, but is currently fully occupied. "To cope with the waiting list, we are in the process of opening two transitional apartments for those who leave the shelter," the ministry said.

"Once the apartments are opened, the waiting list for the shelter will be reduced."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/af ... s-1.434621

"I think that in the case before us, in light of the severe sexual abuse the detainee has undergone, her advanced pregnancy and the committee's refusal to approve an abortion, her continued detention in custody is liable to harm her health, and this justifies releasing her to an alternative shelter, with suitable guarantees [that she won't flee]," he wrote.

So, they're keeping her in detention so she won't flee to another country ? What a joke !

They should encourage her to speak on camera so others would hear the danger of leaving their country for somewhere they have no idea what is awaiting for them. Even after crossing into Israel, the best motel for migrants is to sleep in an open air, at Levinsky Park.

The Israeli government is building a concentration camp to house what it calls "African illegal infiltrators" -- because the use of the word "refugees" implies they are guaranteed the rights accorded to them under international human rights law.

Israeli prison is filled with Ethiopians – Cynthia McKinney

Cynthia McKinney Letter from an Israeli Jail

I’ve learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it’s incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream… like my cellmates, one who is pregnant. They are all are in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the Holy Land. They had a dream that their lives would be better… The once proud, never-colonized Ethiopia [has been thrown into] the back pocket of the United States, and become a place of torture, rendition, and occupation. Ethiopians must free their country because superpower politics [have] become more important than human rights and self-determination.

My cellmates came to the Holy Land so they could be free from the exigencies of superpower politics. They committed no crime except to have a dream. They came to Israel because they thought that Israel held promise for them. Their journey to Israel through Sudan and Egypt was arduous. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them. And it wasn’t cheap. Many of them represent their family’s best collective efforts for self-fulfilment. They made their way to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They got their yellow paper of identification. They got their certificate for police protection. They are refugees from tragedy, and they made it to Israel, only after they arrived Israel told them, “There is no UN in Israel.”

The police here have license to pick them up and [deleted] them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious and proud women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of Israel tricked them and the rest of us. In a widely propagandized slick marketing campaign, Israel represented itself as a place of refuge and safety for the world’s first Jews and Christians. I too believed that marketing and failed to look deeper.

The truth is that Israel lied to the world. Israel lied to the families of these young women. Israel lied to the women themselves who are now trapped in Ramle’s detention facility. And what are we to do? One of my cellmates cried today. She has been here for six months. As an American, crying with them is not enough. The policy of the United States must be better, and while we watch President Obama give 12.8 trillion dollars to the financial elite of the United States it ought now be clear that hope, change, and “yes we can” were powerfully presented images of dignity and self-fulfilment, individually and nationally, that besieged people everywhere truly believed in.

It was a slick marketing campaign as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel’s marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.


Read more...
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/10274

The woman entered Israel illegally from Sinai last November. After she was identified as an Ethiopian citizen, a deportation order was issued, but she refused to return to Ethiopia and has therefore remained in Saharonim.

It sounds like the Israeli government is using snitches to determine the nationalities of the refugees.

heart breaking! thanks for sharing.

heart breaking! thanks for sharing.

she's a victim of your woyane regime's genocidal crimes in Ethiopia.

Eden, Eriprodigy aka the borqaq@£@£@[deleted] and revolution aka Tigraway broda are a bunch of hypocrite who enjoy people suffering to make some cheap political point.

.My dick is bigger than your dick kind of non sense makes me sick

Both of you......[deleted]@@@@kkkkk you!

They should encourage her to speak on camera so others would hear the danger of leaving their country for somewhere they have no idea what is awaiting for them. Even after crossing into Israel, the best motel for migrants is to sleep in an open air, at Levinsky Park.

An Eritrean opposition group has been accusing the woyane regime of carrying out human trafficking operations involving Eritrean and Ethiopian victims who were sold to Bedouin gangs at Sinai desert and got killed for their organs. Woyane are evil people. They would sell their mothers into slavery for one miserable dollar!