Amsterdam police urge exploited Romanian sex workers to come forward
The Amsterdam police are circulating a video among Romanian sex workers in the city, urging them to come forward if they are victims of human trafficking. In the video, a former exploited sex worker assures her former colleagues that they too can get out, and the police promise to help them, Nieuwsuur reports.
The video follows a major police operation against human trafficking in the Red Light District on Tuesday. The Amsterdam police arrested four suspects. At the same time, three suspects were arrested in Romania. The investigation is ongoing, and more arrests may follow.
The police did not publish the video publicly, but sent it to individual sex workers. It is now circulating in the sector. Nieuwsuur has seen the video.
Many sex workers in the Red Light District are Romanian. The anonymous victim therefore addresses her former colleagues in Romanian. “I got out,” she says. “You can too.”
The police add: “Perhaps you chose this work yourself. Yet no one should take advantage of you, your money, or your feelings. You are not alone. The police in the Netherlands can help.”
“We are actively looking for victims,” a police spokesperson told Nieuwsuur. “We know that for many of them, going to the police is a real barrier. We are trying to remove that barrier.”
Conny Rijken, the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking, called it exceptional that the police simultaneously arrested suspects in the Netherlands and Romania. “It is a long and intensive process to get a clear picture of these types of networks. We haven’t seen a raid like this in years,” she told the current affairs program.
Rijken is not surprised that some of the suspects come from Romania. According to her, several human trafficking networks are active in that country. They work on “carousel structures” to stay under the police’s radar, she said. “International networks that constantly have women working in different places. First, a few days in Amsterdam and then again in another country or city. As a result, it is very difficult for the justice system to get a grip on them.”
