The Netherlands is often presented as an advanced democracy and a shiny example for the protection of human rights in the world. Indeed, human trafficking is a worrying reality that needs to be addressed in this country. Here we offer you an overview of that submission about the ties between prostitution and human trafficking. The Netherlands supported these recommendations, but obviously did not enforce them well enough.
The Netherlands has a liberal conception of prostitution. In , the Netherlands became the first European country to legalize prostitution. As long as prostitution involves two consenting adults, it is legal. Thus, the Netherlands has lowered the penalty for the crime of rape, since all involuntary sexual acts are grouped in one denomination.
For the government, the legalization of prostitution has allowed sex workers to have better working conditions and to be better protected. But can legalizing of prostitution be an effective way to fight against sex trafficking? The legalization of prostitution, legitimized by the argument of freedom and consent, lead to the normalization of sex workers.
The prostitution business has become a fertile soil for human traffickers in the Netherlands. It is estimated that the number of human trafficking victims is around 6,, with approximately 1, of those victims being underage Dutch girls [3]. The majority of these victims are used for forced prostitution and sexual exploitation [4]. A Romanian woman told her story of how she was lied to and sold and forced into prostitution for five years in the Netherlands [6]. At the age of 17, someone she thought of as her boyfriend lured her from Romania to London where she believed she would have a good paying job as a hairstylist [7].
Soon after getting to London she was sold and forced to go work in an Amsterdam brothel and had her passport taken away from her [8]. When I saw the brothels with all the girls in the windows, I cried. After being sexually exploited for five years, she was finally able to escape with the help of a support agency [11].
