A Palestinian resident of Hebron has been indicted on human trafficking offenses in a Beersheva court after selling her 13-year-old daughter to a 40-year-old married Israeli Bedouin for 8,000 shekels ($2,200) earlier this year, prosecutors announced on Tuesday.
According to the Israeli Southern District Attorney’s Office, the suspect, identified as a 48-year-old woman, agreed with a resident of the Negev village of Hura that he would marry her daughter in return for the initial sum and additional monthly charges of 1,500 shekels ($408).
The minor was said to have been forced to sign a contract drawn up by the two. The wedding to the 40-year-old man, who was already married to two women and has 15 children, was held illegally.
The mother accepted the payment and left her 13-year-old daughter behind in the man’s home. The suspect stands accused of human trafficking, forging a document and staying in Israel illegally.
“This is a very difficult case in which unacceptable phenomena—human trafficking and polygamy—came together, while exploiting a 13-year-old girl as a commodity,” said attorney Dina Dominitz, who coordinates the National Anti-Trafficking Department within the Israeli Justice Ministry.
The Israeli government recognized the Palestinian girl as a victim of human trafficking, and she is now staying in a shelter, said Dominitz.
Last week, the Israel Police and Israel Defense Forces rescued three Ukrainian-Palestinian boys, aged five to nine, from their abusive father in the city of Dura near Hebron. Their father, a 46-year-old Palestinian, was arrested by police on suspicion of committing sexual offenses, unlawful imprisonment, assault, abuse and preventing medical treatment.
The suspect, who is married to a Ukrainian citizen and has five children with her, had allegedly been abusing her and their children in recent years. Two years ago, the woman and her two daughters managed to escape to pre-1967 Israel, while the three boys remained behind.
Following the operation, the boys were reunited with their mother and sisters in coordination with Israeli welfare authorities, authorities said.
Israel Police Cmdr. Niso Guetta, who heads the Judea District, stated, “This was a moral and humanitarian operation by the security forces and other agencies with the sole purpose of saving helpless minors.”
