More foreign victims of sexual exploitation in Netherlands: Rapporteur

The number of foreign people who fall victim to sexual exploitation in the Netherlands increased in 2023, the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking reports based on reports. The number of victims with an African or South American nationality, in particular, increased compared to the previous year.

The rapporteur publishes annual figures on human trafficking in the Netherlands on the European Day Against Human Trafficking. In 2023, 868 victims of human trafficking were reported to the Coordination Center against Human Trafficking, an increase of 54 percent compared to the previous year. According to the rapporteur, there are more victims than those reported. An estimated 5,000 people fall prey to human traffickers every year.

In 2023, more than half of reports concerned sexual exploitation, both of foreign people and people with Dutch nationality. The number of sexual exploitation cases involving people from abroad increased from 217 in 2022 to 333 in 2023. The number of reports involving Dutch people decreased from 162 in 2022 to 135 last year. The number of reports of labor exploitation also decreased, from 348 in 2022 to 299 in 2023

Most victims of sexual exploitation were in home prostitution and escort prostitution. In 2023, there were 178 reports of African victims of sexual exploitation compared to 119 cases in 2022. Last year, 68 Latin American victims were reported, compared to 26 the year before. The rapporteur referred to crises in Venezuela. The consequences of these are “clearly felt and visible in the Caribbean Netherlands and other countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.”

The majority of reported victims are women. This has been the case for years. Women are mainly victims of sexual exploitation, men are more likely to fall victim to labor exploitation. In 2023, 52 minors were registered as victims of human trafficking. That is a decrease compared to the previous year.

In 2023, investigations identified 253 suspected perpetrators of human trafficking, the majority of whom were men. Ultimately, 78 cases came to court.

The Rapporteur called the increase in the number of victims in home prostitution “worrying because of the invisible nature of exploitation in this sector.” It “requires a recalibration and intensification of investigative resources.”