Sound of Torture | |
---|---|
Directed by | Keren Shayo |
Written by | Keren Shayo |
Produced by | Osnat Trabelsi, Galit Cahlon |
Cinematography | Daniel Kedem |
Edited by | Ayal Goldberg |
Music by | Yosef Babliki |
Production company | Trabelsi Productions |
Distributed by | First Hand Films (Israel), Women Make Movies (USA) |
Release date |
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Running time | 60 minutes |
Countries | Israel, Egypt, Sweden |
Languages | Hebrew, Tigrinya, Arabic Subtitles in English |
Sound of Torture is a 2013 documentary film written and directed by Israeli filmmaker Keren Shayo which follows Eritrean radio host and human rights activist Meron Estefanos as she reports on Eritrean refugees who have been captured in Sudan while migrating across the Sinai Peninsula into Israel.
The film Sound of Torture chronicles Meron Estefanos’ journey with the families of those who have been kidnapped, tortured, and raped by Bedouin smugglers in the Sinai Desert. [1] Those held captive are brought to torture camps and given cell phones to call their families and beg for ransom for their release. [2] [3] The amount of ransom money demanded by the traffickers ranges from $15,000-$40,000 American dollars. [3] Estefanos broadcasts her weekly radio program “Voices of Eritrean Refugees” out of her home in Stockholm, Sweden where she dedicates the show to reporting on the refugee kidnappings in Sinai. [4] During the broadcast she reads the names of recently kidnapped victims and gives updates and advice to Eritrean listeners. The film shows Estefanos’ attempts to communicate with hostages and the kidnappers as she then airs their phone conversations during her broadcasts so the audience can bear witness the torture being inflicted. [5] [6] Sound of Torture follows two specific cases which takes Estafanos to Sinai where she witnesses first-hand the stories of those who have been tortured and to Tel Aviv where she finally meets the Sudanese refugees who she has kept in contact with. [5]
Keren Shayo chose to make this film due to the lack of media coverage and political discussion on this topic. [7] [8] Shayo's main goal for this film was to raise global awareness surrounding the situations Eritreans undergo when attempting to seek asylum. [7] [8] [9] Shayo's previous work with migrants and refugees brought together her and Estafanos to create Sound of Torture. [7]
About 3,000 Eritreans a month flee the dictatorship of Isaias Afwerki and the one-party state of Eritrea where indefinite military service and forced labor is required of all Eritreans from the age of 18 to 55. [1] [6] [10] Eritrea is considered one of the most surveilled countries in the world with no independent media and no public internet service. [10] Afwerki has been the country's only president since Eritrea gained its independence from Ethiopian rule in 1991. [10] The United Nations has described the kidnappings and human trafficking in Sinai as one of the most under-reported humanitarian crises in the world while the government of Eritrea's human rights record is considered among the worst in the world. [11] After Europe closed its borders in 2006, the only option for Eritreans fleeing their country towards Israel is across the Sinai desert in Egypt. [1] [8] Critics explain that those fleeing Eritrea are looking for better opportunities in Israel away from their repressive government, conditions of poverty, and prolonged incarceration and military service. [12] It has been reported that people of the Rashaida Tribe, Eritreans, and Sudanese soldiers are all involved in the trafficking of Eritreans to Israel. [2] [4] Many Eritreans pay traffickers to transport them to the Israeli border but are instead held hostage by those they paid and sold to gangs in Sinai where they are tortured and held for ransom. [2] [3] These strategically organized kidnapping are known as the refugee kidnappings in Sinai.
Human rights in Eritrea are viewed, as of the 2020s, by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch as among the worst in the world, particularly with regards to freedom of the press. Eritrea is a one-party state in which national legislative elections have been repeatedly postponed, the judiciary is weak, and constitutional provisions protecting individual freedom have yet to be fully implemented. Some Western countries, particularly the United States, accuse the Government of Eritrea of arbitrary arrest and detentions and of detaining an unknown number of people without charge for their political activism. Additionally, Eritrean citizens, both men and women, are forcibly conscripted into the military with an indefinite length of service and used as forced labour.
Zadok "Duki” Dror, is an independent Israeli filmmaker whose films explore issues of migration, identity and displacement.
Human trafficking in Israel includes the trafficking of men and women into the country for forced labor and sex slavery. The country has made serious efforts to reduce the problem in recent years and now ranks 90th out of 167 countries who provide data. Identification of victims, criminal justice work and efforts to co-ordinate with business and government agencies has been concerted in reducing this problem in the last decade.
Libya is a transit and destination country for men and women from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. While most foreigners in Libya are economic migrants, in some cases large smuggling debts of $500–$2,000 and illegal status leave them vulnerable to various forms of coercion, resulting in cases of forced prostitution and forced labor.
Yair Qedar is an Israeli documentary filmmaker, social activist and former journalist. In his project "the Hebrews", he had been Chronicling the lives of Jewish and Israeli figures of the modern Hebrew literary canon, Qedar's 19 feature length documentaries have all premiered at film festivals and have won the director over 20 prizes. Also, Qedar is a leading LGBTQ activist. He created several Queer films and the first Israeli LGBTQ newspaper.
Sudanese refugees in Israel refers to citizens of Sudan who have sought refuge in Israel due to military conflict at home, and to those who moved there illegally as migrant workers. In 2008, there were 4,000 Sudanese in Israel, 1,200 from Darfur and the remainder Christians from South Sudan. The majority entered through the Israeli-Egypt border. Most live in Tel Aviv, Arad, Eilat and Bnei Brak.
African immigration to Israel is the international movement to Israel from Africa of people that are not natives or do not possess Israeli citizenship in order to settle or reside there. This phenomenon began in the second half of the 2000s, when a large number of people from Africa entered Israel, mainly through the then-lightly fenced border between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula. According to the data of the Israeli Interior Ministry, 26,635 people arrived illegally in this way by July 2010, and over 55,000 by January 2012. In an attempt to curb the influx, Israel constructed the Egypt–Israel barrier. Since its completion in December 2013, the barrier has almost completely stopped the immigration of Africans into Israel across the Sinai border.
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In 2010 the U.S. Department of State reported that:
Eritrea is a source country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and, to a lesser extent, forced prostitution. During the reporting period, acts of forced labor occurred in Eritrea, particularly in connection with the implementation of the country's national service program. Under the parameters set forth in Proclamation of National Service, men aged 18 to 54 and women aged 18 to 47 are required to provide 18 months of military and non-military public works and services in any location or capacity chosen by the government....
Eritrean children work in various economic sectors, including domestic service, street vending, small-scale factories, and agriculture; child laborers frequently suffer abuse from their employers and some may be subjected to conditions of forced labor. Some children in prostitution are likely exploited through third party involvement....
Each year, large numbers of Eritrean workers migrate in search of work, particularly to the Gulf States and Egypt, where some become victims of forced labor, primarily in domestic servitude. Smaller numbers are subjected to forced prostitution. In 2009, for example, five Eritrean trafficking victims were identified in the United Kingdom and one in Israel. In addition, thousands of Eritreans flee the country illegally, mostly to Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, where their illegal status makes them vulnerable to situations of human trafficking.
Danae Elon, is an Israeli documentary filmmaker and cinematographer based in Montreal Quebec.
Large numbers of refugee kidnappings in Sinai occurred between 2009 and 2014. Refugees from Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea were transported to Sinai and held hostage by members of Bedouin tribes. Typically, the hostages were forced to give up phone numbers of relatives and were tortured with the relatives on the phone, in order to obtain ransoms in the range of $20,000–$40,000. If the families could not pay, the hostages were killed. The Egypt–Israel barrier, designed to keep out African migrants, caused the Rashaida traffickers to lose income from transporting refugees to the border, so they started to concentrate on kidnappings.
The International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (FIFDH) is one of the most important international events dedicated to cinema and human rights, located in the heart of Geneva, "international capital of human rights". The inspiration and impetus behind the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights came from human rights defenders active in NGO's, filmmakers, media representatives and the University of Geneva. The FIFDH coincides with the UN Human Rights Council's main session. This simultaneous event makes the Festival a Free Platform for discussion and debates on a wide variety of topics concerning human rights. It was created by Léo Kaneman and co-founded by Yäel Reinharz Hazan, Pierre Hazan and Isabelle Gattiker in November 2002. Its first edition took place in March 2003.
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Azezet Habtezghi Kidane is an Eritrean-born British nun and human trafficking activist working in Israel.
Human organ trafficking in Egypt, as of 2014 mainly practiced in Cairo and the Sinai Peninsula, includes organ harvesting with induced consent, coercion, and outright theft. Egypt has become the largest hub of organ transplant in North Africa as one of the few countries that prohibited organ donation from deceased donors until 2010, with over 500 kidney transplant operations a year and the majority of these organs come from living donors. Sources in the organ trafficking process mainly come from vulnerable populations including domestic rural migrants, undocumented asylum seekers and informal labor. The emergence of cultural and religious increase in organ trade and transplant tourism contribute to the rocketing demand for organ trafficking market in Egypt. Human organ trafficking poses both physical and mental health consequences for victims. Although Egypt has been gradually updating legal frameworks to combat organ trafficking, the regulation has failed in reality protecting survivors and governing transplant professionals.
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Tewelde Goitom, or Walid or Welid, is an Eritrean human trafficker and smuggler.
Meron Estefanos is a Swedish-Eritrean human rights activist and journalist. She first became known in the Eritrean refugee community in 2011 for helping people who had been kidnapped and tortured by human traffickers on their way to Israel in order to extort ransom money from their relatives, exemplified in the 2013 documentary film Sound of Torture. After the migrant and trafficking routes changed to Libya, her efforts continued and uncovered criminal networks reaching into Europe. As of 2022, Estefanos deplored that no traffickers had been brought to justice, with little interest from national governments and international organisations.
On 2 September 2023, violent clashes took place in the streets of South Tel Aviv between Eritrean migrants opposing Isaias Afwerki's government, migrant supporters of Isaias Afwerki's government, and later with Israeli police trying to restore order. As a result of the clashes, more than 110 people were injured.