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The Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women held a joint discussion today (Tuesday) with the Special Committee for Youth Affairs on the issue of multiple testimonies of organized ritual sexual abuse and the handling of the state authorities.

The chairwoman of the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women and Gender Equality, MK Pnina Tamano Sheta (State Camp), opened the discussion and presented the shocking phenomenon that was revealed in a journalistic investigation. MK Naama Lazimi (Democrats), chairwoman of the Committee on Youth Affairs, said: "I couldn't breathe when I heard about a network of ritual abuse in childhood. That there is an organized and dangerous mechanism and nothing is being done to stop the phenomenon. In this place we will discuss and try to expose in order to make amends."

Yael Ariel said: "I was harmed by ritual abuse for years until my late teens and was forced to harm other children. I chose to speak out and make my voice heard. I received threats after I revealed my story. From the age of 5 to the age of 20, I was harmed in these rituals. " She said she received testimonies from several women who said that doctors, educators, police officers, and past and present members of Knesset took part in the ritual abuse they suffered . "I filed a complaint with the police that was closed after a few months, and I know of other cases that were closed. Making our voices heard in the Knesset here today is a historic moment."

Dr. Naama Goldberg, CEO of "We Will Not Stand By," said in the discussion: "Several years ago, descriptions of sadistic abuse of children came to me. The descriptions sounded absurd. The testimonies kept coming and did not let up. They described group abuse by men and sometimes with women. The abuse was filmed and there was drug use. There is use of ceremonial rituals and symbolism. There was a motive of controlling the community. I presented the police with written testimonies from five women. To this day, no one has contacted me. Since the article, additional testimonies have come."

Lt. Col. Anat Yakir , head of crime victims and family in the police, testified: "The system at the highest levels is examining the issue in the 433rd Division and Unit 105. There is a national unit that examines all the files. This is a very high priority in the Intelligence Division." Committee chair MK Tamano Sheta commented: "These files are not being seized. These are Israel's children."

Yael Shitrit , a victim of ritual abuse from ages 3-6 and 12 to 22, revealed: "You have no idea what ritual abuse is. The human brain cannot absorb it. You can't imagine what it's like to program a 3-year-old girl with rape and sadism so that they can do whatever they want without anyone knowing. I will have a lot of symptoms and I won't know why. They program us and it's not just in the secular world. Their trafficking of me happened all over the country. I was taken from ceremony to ceremony. Naked men stand in a circle. My caregiver and her husband and son hurt me and there were dozens of other girls and boys who hurt me.

"There were rituals and ceremonies and ceremonies so that I don't remember. The police have known about it for a year. They don't have the tools to handle it. Those who fall are very, very senior people. The people run communities and authorities. They threaten us. I have children that I need to protect. We need to establish something that can understand what it is. We survived. They tried to make us be them. The people who caused us endless pain. It's your job to stop this in Safed, Jerusalem, Jaljulia or anywhere else."

MK Eli Dellal (Likud) responded: "This is shocking evidence. We need to complain to the police to stop this phenomenon." MK Mati Tzarfati Harkabi (Yesh Atid) added: "This is an earthquake. I can't digest what I'm hearing. This is one of the important discussions that took place in the committee. What I'm hearing here, I couldn't imagine such a reality in my worst nightmare."

My MK Tal Miron (Yesh Atid) said: "I am shocked by the harsh testimonies, there is a gap here that needs to be addressed. There are women in the State of Israel who are under attack from many directions." MK Sharon Nir (Yisrael Beiteinu) commented: "This is a watershed debate. Ritual sexual assault is something I have never heard of before. Something as big as the Titanic is being exposed here. There are children who are being harmed while we are talking here."

Chairman Tamano Sheta accused in the debate: "Reality proves to us that the police are not strong in the event of sexual offenses. No one wants to talk about brutal rape and children who are raped. There are unimaginable cases of monstrosity here." MK Lazimi emphasized: "There is a silenced pedophile network here."

Tess, another victim, said: "I was born in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem to a Haredi family. When I was growing up, I went out and a teacher at a drama school sexually assaulted me. I complained to the police about him after school and they closed the case due to lack of guilt. Then I remembered what happened to me as a child. I witnessed an event at the age of 6. I remembered all kinds of abuse with cameras filming me. I couldn't believe that so many women had gone through things similar to what I had gone through. Haredi and secular men and women shared with me what they had gone through. During an incident of abuse, my life was in danger. I couldn't breathe. I felt like I had to give up and just die. It was a large-scale event."

MK Eli Dellal: "The time has come to move from listening to action. We need to guide the implementing agencies in the police, government ministries, and the legal system – there are helpless children here and we need to initiate things." MK Tamano Sheta: "There is a lack of transparency and neglect towards children. The amount of deviations and abuse is enormous."

MK Yoav Segalovich (Yesh Atid), former head of the police investigations department, said in the debate: "The story here is a problem of lack of treatment of cults. They don't touch on this like Goel Ratzon and the criminal Berland and the Lev Tahor cult. The police have a significant role in the treatment, if it's about child abuse, there should be an integrated team here."

Another victim, A., revealed that she was abused by her cousin from the age of 4: "At the age of 11, he trafficked me, at the age of 14, he took me to sadistic clubs. I was tortured and starved by well-known and famous people. I was abused in countless ways. There were events open to the general public and there were internal rituals in which I was tied to a high pole with handcuffs, there were more handcuffs around me with rituals of drinking menstrual blood and slaughtering cats and other animals. They said no one would believe me if I told. When I grew up, I formed a relationship and filed a complaint with the police 5 years ago. The prosecutor's office closed the case due to lack of guilt and I filed an appeal and it was accepted. I came to give testimony while I was pregnant and they closed the case again due to lack of guilt. They said I was imaginary. I brought recorded testimony from someone who admitted to hurting me and she was not summoned for questioning. Treat it like terrorism."

Orit Sulciano, CEO of the Association of Assistance Centers for Victims of Sexual Assault, said: "This is a historic discussion about this phenomenon. There is a cry for help here." Psychologist Dr. Danny Brom added: "There are always cameras and an element of trafficking and money. There is trafficking in women and not only that. These vulnerabilities prevent people from being credible witnesses. There are even therapists who don't believe that there are such sadistic people."

R., another victim, spoke about the injuries to her children, "which testified to horrific ritual injuries, and the police received information about the involvement of very senior people on both sides of the political fence." According to R., she has not seen her children for over two years, and this is under the protection of the law enforcement authorities. The Knesset members in the hearing promised her that they would personally follow up on her case.

MK Naama Lazimi summed up the discussion and promised that the committees would hold follow-up discussions. "We want data and there can be no cover-up here. We will request it from the police, the prosecutor's office, the welfare department and the Ministry of Education. There is a national issue here and we need the Commissioner in the next discussion because there is a child trafficking network here."