State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss criticized the state’s treatment of immigrants from Ethiopia in his latest report, which was released on Tuesday. Approximately 110,500 immigrants from Ethiopia live in Israel, and 65 percent receive various social services, the report said. However, until 2006 the Welfare Ministry had no organized courses aimed at teaching social workers to understand the immigrants’ unique culture and society.

The Authority for the War on Drugs was also criticized for failing to take the Ethiopian community’s needs into account. Despite recent surveys showing unusually high drug and alcohol use among Ethiopian immigrant youth, the authority has yet to create a program dealing with drug and alcohol use among said youth, the report said.

The report also criticized local authorities for failing to provide enough social workers to deal with domestic violence within the Ethiopian immigrant community. In Netanya, the report found, members of the community were often forced to wait months or even years for a place in programs aimed at countering domestic violence.