Human trafficking of 10 prostitutes suspected

The police checked 71 prostitutes during the human trafficking action week that took place from October 8th - 14th. Ten of these prostitutes showed signs of human trafficking. These signs include poor command of Dutch or English, long working hours and emotional behavior. During the checks, four suspects came of human trafficking came to the police's attention in the units of The Hague (2), Middle Netherlands (1) and Zeeland-West-Brabant (1). A check of a prostitute in a home showed that a possibly underage girl was working as a prostitute. A further investigation is ongoing in this case. Paul Musscher, police chief of the unit in the Hague and nationwide portfolio holder of immigration cases (which includes human trafficking), underlines the importance of these control actions. "Human trafficking is a modern form of slavery that unfortunately is still prevalent in 2014. By working closely together with our partners on both national and local level, we want to continue to fight abuses in the prostitution sector." Since the lifting of the brothel ban, it is forbidden in the Netherlands to run a prostitution business without the required license for a sex establishment. This is to improve the supervision on prostitution. This supervision must lead to, among other things, identifying and combating human trafficking, the exclusion of minors in prostitution, removing illegal workers and monitoring the working conditions.