Prostitution in Haifa and Jaffa

In the early 1920s, a few years prior to Paul Kinsie’s visit to two port towns in Palestine, significant changes had taken place with far-reaching ramifications, among, other things, for prostitution. Ottoman rule had ended and the British occupied Palestine governing it according to the mandate granted by the League of Nations. By 1925 the British had not yet signed, on behalf of Palestine, the 1921 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, issued by the League of Nations, as it would do in 1931. Nevertheless, Kinsie included the two rapidly growing towns of Haifa and Jaffa in his undercover study on trafficking of women and children in the cities of the Middle East. His visit was short and for unspecified reasons, confined to the two towns mentioned above, avoiding Jerusalem where prostitution was rampant immediately after the British occupation, in the winter of 1917–1918.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Gender Equality

Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions