Pubdate: Wed, 4 Jun 2008
Source: Ha'aretz (Israel)
Copyright: 2008 Ha'aretz Daily Newspaper Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.haaretz.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/807
Author: Vered Lee

LEARNING HOW TO GET UP IN THE MORNING

Rada stares into space. A month ago, she was released from the Neveh 
Tirza prison and has since been in a group for released prisoners 
planning to hunt for jobs.

"Employment is the main experience for us in the world," the 
community social worker and group's moderator, Ruthie Ofir, tells the 
ex-convicts, as her eyes move among the women and rest on Rada. "Our 
work defines us, and it is actually our entry card into the world."

Rada seems lost in thought. The moderator asks about her aims. She 
tries to respond, her lips move but her voice is inaudible. A grunt 
escapes after a few seconds, as if coming from the depths of despair. 
"I want to learn how not to use drugs" she says. "I'm not yet able to 
think in terms of work," she apologizes.

Rada, 34, is an Israeli Arab whose father was a drug addict, and 
whose mother was an alcoholic. From the ages of 5 to 10, she went 
from one institution to another and finally went to live with her 
grandmother.  She married at age 15 to discover her husband was also an addict.

At 19, she became a heroin addict. "You can certainly imagine that I 
never held a regular job," she says. "I worked as a prostitute. I 
went with anyone who was ready to pay so I could buy drugs."

Rada was jailed for 10 months on charges of breaking and entering and 
using drugs. She got herself clean in jail. "This is the first time 
since I was 19 that I'm clean of drugs," she says. "But I don't have 
self-confidence. My thoughts keep escaping to the children - I have 
four of them, three are with foster families and one is with the 
grandmother. I haven't seen them for five years, but even when I was 
using drugs, I couldn't forget them. And now that I'm clean, there is 
not a minute that I don't think about them.  Where they are, what 
they are doing, whether other children bother them because of me."

The Telem center was set up 12 years ago; its name is a Hebrew 
acronym for "center for employment of released women prisoners." Anat 
Gur, who heads the women's sector of the prisoner rehabilitation 
authority, says women have a more difficult time joining the labor 
market than men do. "Men who are released from prison are absorbed 
into some kind of physical work, such as carpentry, construction 
work, electric work, vehicles and driving, and they manage to earn 
good money and progress. For the women, the job world is very often 
another arena where they are victimized and exploited, and it isn't 
open to them to the same extent."

The Pimp Is Waiting

The Israel Prisons Service estimates that 90 percent of the women in 
Neveh Tirza were sexually abused as children and did not receive treatment.

"We understood that they are being released from prison suffering 
from post-traumatic stress disorder due to sexual abuse that made 
them drop out of school and suffer from a dramatic lack of 
education," says Gur.

She adds: "In addition, women, even in the criminal world, are at the 
bottom of the ladder, in a position of exploitation. The men are the 
bosses - pimps, drug dealers. We realized there is a dire need to set 
up a center that would serve as a transit place between life in 
prison, between prostitution and drugs, and life in the world of work.

"These women must experience a break from that world, so that when 
they join the the labor market, they will not be subjected to extreme 
exploitation."

The process of locating women in need and getting them to join the 
Telem program begins three months before they are released from prison.

"Outside the gates of the prison, the pimp is already waiting for 
them, and he knows their release date, so it is our job to propose a 
rehabilitation net in an effort to halt this vicious cycle," says 
Orna Ormian-Rabenu, who advises released women. Men who are released, 
she says, "usually have a woman who is waiting and who took care of 
the house and raised the children while they were in jail. What is 
waiting for women is loneliness and rejection by society. They have 
to collect themselves and the children who are dispersed among 
institutions and foster families and try to create a new life."

Ormian-Rabenu says women prisoners are greeted by a severe cold 
shoulder from the world. "Society is more put off by a woman prisoner 
than a man who has served time, and this very often finds expression 
in the refusal to employ women ex-convicts as compared with a 
readiness to employ men. "

Lilach Ben-Moshe Ga'ash, who has been the director of the Telem 
center for the past eight years, says the necessary rehabilitation 
process is extremely long.

"Very often they don't have the basic life skills," she says. They 
have to be taught what some may take for granted - "trivial things 
like getting up in the morning, or how to take a bus and how to 
estimate the time to get to work. Very often they don't know how to 
dress for work, they can go dressed sloppily or otherwise dressed 
like prostitutes with net stockings, tops that don't cover their 
belly and garish make-up, because those are the things they have in 
their closets, and that is the way they were used to getting dressed."

Most of the women who participate in the Telem program sleep in a 
hostel for newly released women, where they get housing and 
supervised rehabilitation.

"Usually, until they go out to work, they survive on state-paid 
guaranteed income of NIS 1,500 a month, and they face difficulties in 
renting an apartment," says Ben-Moshe Ga'ash. The hostel provides a 
solution for a year. After that they go to a halfway house, with two 
or three ex-convicts who are partially supporting themselves, and 
they get used to living in the outside world.

A Fix Every Five Minutes

The workshop continues. Meital, 38, who was released three months 
ago, is practicing with friends the arguments she will soon present 
when she appears before the committee that decides whether she is 
ready to go out to work.

"I want to start working already," says Meital. "It's frustrating, 
because I feel ready..." "So ditch the workshop and start working 
already," one of the participants jokes.

Meital is asked what she is hoping for, and she answers: "I want to 
make decisions for myself. I don't want anyone to decide for me." She 
shows her leg, where her lover's name is tattooed. "I used to think 
he was my savior," she admits.

"For 16 years I did nothing with myself except use drugs, deal drugs 
and break the law," Meital says. She was arrested and jailed for 11 
months for drug dealing.  "I dealt drugs with my boyfriend, who got 
out of prison at the beginning of the month. This is the first time I 
haven't tried to contact him. I'm trying to do things differently."

Meital is a daughter of a family with many children.  Her father was 
an alcoholic.

"He abused me physically. At the age of 14, I fled from home," she says.

When she was 21, after her father died, she started to use hard 
drugs. Meital and her partner sold heavy drugs in the north of the 
country. "When I was jailed, I was addicted to crack [cocaine], and I 
needed a fix every five minutes," she says. In jail she was able to 
get clean. "That was my first and my last jail term," she says.

Meital says that last week, she babysat the children of ex-convict 
women who have been working for more than a year. "That was the first 
NIS 40 I ever earned honestly," she says. Her eyes light up with 
pride. "It was exciting to work and to earn money in a clean way."

Shiri Mandelbaum, the national employment adviser for the prisoner 
rehabilitation authority, says the women need to be accompanied as 
they join the workforce, because often being a victim is what feels 
familiar to them and "they make slaves of themselves." She adds: 
"They often are used to placating people and give their all in order 
to prove themselves - and therefore they don't dare to rebel against 
an employer, even if he is exploiting them."

The powers that be at Telem make sure the women are integrated into 
workplaces that are known as "friendly employers." Mandelbaum says 
these are employers who agree to take on ex-convict women. The woman 
feels comfortable because she doesn't need to hide her past and, says 
Mandelbaum, "We check that she is employed in a non-exploitative work 
environment."

A Job in a Bakery

In the afternoon, 48-year-old Michal arrives at the Telem center. She 
is on her way to a job interview and has come to relieve the tension 
and absorb a little human warmth from the staff at Telem. Michal has 
lost count of how many times she has been jailed. "Maybe seven times, 
maybe eight," she says. "I grew up in the streets from a young age. 
At 23, I went to prison and started using hard drugs. Every time, 
they suggested to me that I go to Telem. But I refused."

Two years ago, she agreed to join the Telem program.  "No one 
believed in me," she says. "Even I didn't believe in myself."

At first, she says, she could not get up in the morning and work for 
the minimum wage and take orders from a young man. "I had built up 
status in the criminal world - and suddenly to have to placate a 
young boy wasn't what I wanted."

Slowly, Michal succeeded in building a life - from scratch. "They 
taught me how to deal with fears, to succeed and be part of a team. 
Now I have been off drugs for two years, and I work full-time at a 
bakery with a team that likes me and moved me - from day one - with 
the way they trusted me. Soon, I'm moving from the halfway house to a 
regular apartment, and now I'm trying to get an additional job with 
youth at risk," she says with moist eyes. "Everything moves me," she 
confirms with a smile. "Without drugs, life is exciting at every step 
that I take." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake