Police: 13-year-old girl forced into prostitution, abused by teenage girl

A 16-year-old girl from Ashkelon was arrested on suspicion of extorting, abusing, and forcing a 13-year-old girl into prostitution.

JUNE 20, 2017 18:04

Updated: JUNE 20, 2017 23:59

Police at the scene of a crime in Rameh in northern Israel (photo credit: ISRAEL POLICE) — Police at the scene of a crime in Rameh in northern Israel

(photo credit: ISRAEL POLICE)

Police cleared for publication on Tuesday that a 16-year-old girl from Ashkelon was arrested on suspicion of extorting, abusing, and forcing a 13-year-old girl into prostitution.

Along with the 16-year-old a number of other minors are also suspected of participating in the alleged abuse and a 31-year-old Sudanese national was arrested on suspicion of soliciting prostitution from the younger girl.

According to police suspicions, the victim was threatened about a NIS 300 debt from a poker game. After allegedly losing the money, the 16-year-old suspect along with another minor plunged the victim’s head in a hole full of water and sand at the beach last month and threatened her to pay. “The suspect then offered the victim a solution – to go with men and to obtain money,” police said.

The same day the victim then allegedly took a taxi with the teenage suspect to the apartment of Sudanese nationals to solicit prostitution. Later in the day, the suspects arrived at a park where they met a Sudanese man, and after negotiations with the suspect they agreed on NIS 300 for sex with the victim, police said.

After the alleged solicitation of prostitution the abuse and extortion continued, police said. Over a number of days the victim was given cigarette burns on her body, spit on, kicked, and told that if she does not pay the money a bomb would be placed under her mother’s car.

A 12-year-old boy is said to have stabbed her with a sharp stick drawing blood and hit her head against a wall.

On another day the 16-year-old suspect and another minor met the victim at a skate park. After saying that she did not have the NIS 300 because she forgot it at home, the suspect allegedly attacked her, throwing a fire extinguisher at her and choking her with a cloth.

“She is threatened that she will have to bring the sum of NIS 300 by next Friday, and if she does not, the suspect will kill her,” police said in a statement.

Attorney Michael Buskila of the Public Defender’s Office, who represents the teenager, told Ynet, “It is already clear that this is a minor from a complex family background who underwent serious tragedies in her life. When an indictment is filed, we will study the investigation materials and respond accordingly.”

Police added that the 16-year-old suspect initially denied the accusations but over the course of the investigation confessed.

The 31-year-old suspect denied the allegations, but police contend that they were able to refute his alibi. Indictments in the case are expected to be filed by state prosecutors this week.

The investigation opened on June 7 after the 13-year-old appeared at a youth club, with wounds she told a youth counselor came from frying schnitzels.

The girl then asked the counselor for few hundred shekels, arousing suspicions.

She told the counselor she was being blackmailed and wanted to “finish the story with them soon,” police said.