There’s a moment in every rehabilitation story that doesn’t make it into the inspirational quotes. It’s not the first day sober, or the first job interview, or even the first night of safe sleep. It’s the moment a person realizes the past hasn’t just hurt them, it’s still billing them.
For one woman, a survivor of the sex trade, that bill came in the form of 77 fines totaling about 100,000 shekels. Not a “mistake,” not a single misstep—an accumulated record of survival under conditions most of us are lucky never to face. A teenager subjected to severe sexual assault. A descent into prostitution, drug dependence, and life on the street. And then, against the odds, a decision to climb out.
She did what we demand people do when we speak about “responsibility.” She sought help. With the support of a mobile clinic operated through the Haifa Health Bureau, she got clean. She started looking for work. She began the slow, grinding work of rebuilding a life.
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