Prostitution and drug addiction are linked in Israel. Some women become prostitutes only to finance their addiction. Prostitutes in the old central bus station area the red light disrict in Tel Aviv earn as little as 50 shekels around 10 euros for sexual services and some of them sleep with up to 30 men a day. Prostitution in Israel has been dominated by Russians since the mass immigration from the former Soviet Union in the s. At the beginning of the s, only in three years, the number of massage parlors run by Russian immigrants rose from 14 to In the present, there are around brothels in Tel Aviv.
All the rooms on the ground floor of the building in this photo are sex parlors. Sex bar in the old central bus station area, Tel Aviv These streets are crowded with sex bars, sex shops and sex parlors. Over the years, it became mostly populated with foreign and illegal workers. Several suicide bombing attacks have been carried out here during the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian confrontation.
In the present, it is the worst place in Tel Aviv, a world of prostitution and drugs, with a high crime rate. Who can rent here a cheap appartment or open up a shop, is considered lucky, since so many people sleep on the streets or in deserted buildings. They have no other place to go to. This is one of places where they take drugs and hang out with drug dealers. Everything is falling apart here, the buildings too.
Ira, 23 — Her mother left Russia after the divorce, together with her two daughters, hoping for a better life in Israel.
She lives now on the street and works as a prostitute. After a two-day-storm and heavy rain when she slept on the streets, despite all the hot tea and blankets, she was shivering the whole day at the shelter for prostitutes. Many of the older prostitutes are mothers whose children have been taken away by the Israeli authorities and sent to boarding schools or given to adoption.
