One in four women sexually harassed, assaulted in Israel

According to a personal security survey, out of approximately 153,000 cases of sexual harassment in 2018, only 4,814 reported it to centers that provide help to victims of sexual violence.

By TAMAR URIEL-BEERI
Assault (illustrative) (photo credit: PXFUEL)
Assault (illustrative)
(photo credit: PXFUEL)
One in four women on average are sexually harassed and assaulted in Israel, but only 2%-5% report the incident to the police, according to the State Comptroller’s report released on Monday afternoon.
According to the personal security survey by the Internal Security Ministry, out of approximately 153,000 cases of sexual harassment in 2018, only 4,814 were reported to centers that provide help to victims of sexual violence. Of these, only 29 attackers were indicted for primarily or only sexual violence, while 129 indictments involved sexual misconduct of any sort.
Sexual harassment incidents between public workers and the general public are not sufficiently addressed by the government, the report claims. The treatment of sexual harassment in both the private and the public sector was seen as poor. The report insisted that the government must increase oversight on the subject.
The numbers, according to the Comptroller’s report, reflect a choice to not report such incidents to the Civil Service Commission. Government employees who file and follow up on reports of sexual misconduct reported in a survey that they are not given the proper information by the CSC regarding the status of the cases after they have been reported. If a case has been closed, for example, they and therefore the victims who they are caring for are not updated.
The Comptroller’s report additionally accused several ministries of not having the proper broad procedures to cope with cases of sexual misconduct. The Health and Education ministries, for example – where one significant factor is power gaps between attacker and victim — do not have reasonable response procedures to handle such delicate circumstances.
The Education Ministry has not collected the full scope of reports of sexual harassment toward minors, making their response in every manner disproportionate to what may actually be occurring. In fact, it has not used its powers to fire people who have been accused of sexual misconduct if the accusation did not reach a criminal conviction.
Sexual violence has been particularly prevalent amid the coronavirus pandemic, as victims of domestic abuse are trapped in their homes with their abusers. Five women have been killed in acts of domestic violence so far this year, and four people — two women and two men — committed suicide in relation to such misconduct.
On average, 372 people commit suicide per year – a little more than one a day – according to the comptroller’s report, out of 6,370 attempts. Suicide is in fact the second leading cause of death among teenagers. Nevertheless, over the past decade, the number of suicide cases in the country has dropped by almost 15%.
The state initiated a national plan to prevent suicide in 2013, but as yet, only 28% of local authorities have implemented it. This is because the Health Ministry, which is in charge of implementing the plan, did not prepare a working plan to have the rules set in place in all 255 local authorities. This may be partially due to the fact that over half of the funds required to implement the plan were removed from the budget by the Health Ministry. The ministries cooperating to formulate the plan were notified that they must come together to compile a strategy to have it implemented as soon as possible.
The Education Ministry is partially at fault here, as well, as it stopped convening suicide and suicide attempt investigation committees.
One additional concern regarding the suicide rate in the country is the availability of weapons for people with a known relationship with suicide, which the government had planned to make less available to the general public but had not done so.
Nevertheless, the number of suicide cases in the IDF has shrunken exponentially due to a plan for the prevention of suicide in the army that was implemented in 2006.
One preventative method for suicide is psychological and psychiatric treatment, but according to the Comptroller’s report, the average waiting time for a single psychotherapy appointment is 150 days, while waiting time for a single mental health intake test could be over a year. In addition, there are 400 open slots for positions of those who provide psychotherapy in government-run and health care service clinics.
In 2015, responsibility for mental health care was transferred from the government to the four most common health insurance funds in Israel: Maccabi, Klalit, Meuhedet and Leumit.
The report additionally criticized the lack of treatment given by health care providers at patient’s homes, as well as emergency response services.
Several health care providers, when one schedules an appointment online, do not differentiate between a public therapist paid for by health care and a private one, for which the patient has to pay.
Arab towns and villages, in particular, have a low number of therapy patients due to a lack of such service in their regions.


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