Azezet Habtezghi Kidane

Sister Azazet listened to countless of interviews, sensitively interacting with victims, to learn about trafficking in the Sinai.

Sister Aziza, as she is known, is a member of the Comboni Missionary Sisters from Eritrea. She volunteers as a nurse for the NGO Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I). Over the course of two years, from 2010 through 2012, she began to focus attention on what was happening in the Sinai: enslavement for sexual exploitation, and torture of asylum seekers. This led to Physicians for Human Rights beginning an investigation into these abuses. What that investigation entailed was hours upon hours of interviewing victims, people who had come from the Sinai. Sister Aziza sat and listened to interview after interview, and it was her kindness and devotion that would win the day. The victims felt they could open up to her because of her heartfelt concern. What these interviews have done is shed light on trafficking in the Sinai, a previously unheard of and secret practice. She identified and interviewed men, women, and children who had been kidnapped, tortured for ransom payments, raped, and subjected to forced labor and sexual exploitation. She was honored as a "TIP Report Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery" in recognition of her efforts to combat human trafficking in 2012.