To Charlie Brown,
Sorry, you have very little knowledge of Sherut Le’umi. Sherut Le’umi girls choose by themselves and their parents from a multitude of programs to do chessed. Many of these programs are under frum supervision, including hospitals (Sha’arei Tzedek, Bikur Cholim, Laniado), ganim for handicapped, autistic, and learning disabled children, and much more. There are frum women counselors who specialize in helping girls pick the right program on an individual basis. If a girl is dissatisfied with a program, she can switch to another or may simply leave. No one is coerced, it is a voluntary program. Many girls sleep at home, and even more are home for shabbos every week.
Is the supervision of a teenage American going to seminary better? Yes, the family has entrusted the girl to an institution the father “trusts”. That’s very nice, you think there’s a mashgiach tmidi following these girls around Geulah, on buses, on their cellphones? If a girl wants to get into trouble, it won’t take a week no matter where she is in school. It boils down to the chinuch she got at home and the type of girl she is, we all know that sometimes the best chinuch isn’t enough. If she’s trustworthy she’ll behave properly, whether it be in seminary, in sherut le’umi, or working as a billing person in a doctor’s office. If she is not trustworthy, the last place you want her is on the other side of the ocean with a credit card. The rosh yeshiva can’t put them all in a cage with a closed circuit surveillance camera. And Daddy has lost control.