Minister seeks to define strip club lap dances as prostitution

One week after a court ruled that Ramat Gan strip clubs “should not be considered entertainment,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan is attempting to redefine lap dances as acts of prostitution.

In response to a letter from Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie, Erdan on Monday said that he approached both the Justice Ministry and the State Prosecutor’s Office with a request to end what he termed an “abusive and exploitative industry.”

“The State Prosecutor’s Office will examine the amendment of Directive 2.2, which among other things deals with the enforcement of prostitution-related crimes, in such a way that would redefine a lap dance as an act of prostitution,” Erdan said in a statement Sunday. “This will allow the [club] owners to be charged with pimping, solicitation and other similar offenses.”

Erdan also said he would give law enforcement officials all the necessary tools to “significantly reduce this abusive, exploitative industry and bring the perpetrators to justice.”

Lavie, the chairwoman of the Knesset Subcommittee on Combating Human Trafficking and Prostitution, on Monday officially urged Erdan to pursue the legal change in terminology.

“Testimonies to the committee indicate that in many strip clubs prostitution is taking place for all intents and purposes by exploiting distressed women who were brought in to be strippers,” she said.

Lavie added that in her letter that she had also urged police to prioritize combating prostitution, including increased enforcement against establishments that advertise sex services.

While prostitution itself remains legal in Israel, pimping, sex trafficking, and running a brothel are punishable by law.

Last Monday, the Tel Aviv District Court banned a strip club from the Diamond Exchange District in Ramat Gan, after determining such establishments “should not be considered entertainment.”

In her precedent-setting ruling, Judge Michal Agmon-Gonen said that strip clubs “degrade and objectify women,” as well as “violating their dignity as human beings.”

“The fact that the law requires the regulation of a sex business does not indicate that the law justifies such practices,” she wrote in her decision, adding that “the entirety of the law is working to eradicate this.”

In July, the Knesset’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved two privately submitted bills criminalizing johns who hire prostitutes.

The bills — one submitted by Lavie and the other by Jewish Home MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli along with Meretz MK Zehava Gal-on — marked the first time the government signaled its willingness to combat the phenomenon through legislation, after nearly a decade of efforts by female lawmakers to spearhead legislation to criminalize the purchasing of sex services.

The issue earned overwhelming support in the Knesset in recent months, with 71 lawmakers from both the coalition and opposition lending their backing to criminal action against “johns,” as is the practice in Sweden, Norway, and France and other countries.

Advocates of the measure argue the new penalties against clients will help eradicate prostitution in Israel while offering rehabilitation services to sex workers. Critics maintain it could drive prostitution further underground and would likely not be rigidly enforced by police.

Although Israel has existing laws against purchasing sex services from minors, just 18 cases were opened in the past three years, and just three ended in convictions.

Marissa Newman contributed to this report.