human trafficking

A former group leader of youth care institution Hoenderloo Groep in Apeldoorn appeared in court on Monday on charges of forcing an underage girl at the institution into prostitution. The PvdA will ask parliamentary questions about this case, Omroep Gelderland reports.

A Syrian man was sentenced to two years in prison, four months of which conditionally suspended, for trafficking children through Schiphol. Between December 2016 and February 2018 the man smuggled five children from Greece, through Schiphol and into the Netherlands, AT5 reports.

According to the Public Prosecutor, the man himself is an asylum seeker from Syria. He told the court that he wanted to help separated families by bringing their children to them. He called the trafficking an expression of "charity", according to the broadcaster.

A man was arrested in Steenwijk on suspicion of human trafficking. He offered passersby sex with an underage girl on parking lot De Ruinen along the N375 in Ruinerwold on Saturday, the police said in a statement on Sunday.

The police tracked the man down based on an anonymous tip, which included the license plate of the man's car, received on Saturday evening. The suspect was found in Steenwijk, along with an underage girl. She was questioned and transferred to a safe place.

The Rotterdam investigative authorities are going to use cameras for extra surveillance at the port of Rotterdam. They hope that this will help in the fight against cocaine- and human trafficking. "In this way the net around the cocaine traffickers will be pulled tighter again", Bert Wiersema, director of enforcement policy at customs, said NU.nl reports.

The first new cameras were installed on the Maasvlakte following a successful test on Sluisjesdijk. Almost 200 more will be added in the coming years. 

Last week the police arrested over 100 people in a nationwide campaign against so-called 'mobile banditry' - gangs of criminals that travel from place to place to commit crimes. The detainees include shoplifters, baby formula thieves, pickpockets, drug traffickers, identity thieves and even a fake cop, the police said in a statement on Monday night.

The nationwide action was held between Tuesday and Friday last week. Multiple people were arrested at Amsterdam Central Station for pickpocketing, or attempts thereto. 

Hundreds of Roma children are being used by family members as pickpockets, burglars or even sex slaves in the Netherlands, various experts and aid workers said to Nieuwsuur. The police responded that 400 detectives work on hundreds of human trafficking cases per year, including the exploitation of Roma children. Police officers will get extra training this year on recognizing the signs of human trafficking.

Over 6 thousand people, mostly women, are annually exploited for prostitution or webcam sex in the Netherlands, according to a new report by National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking Corinne Dettmeijer. With that, the number of human trafficking victims in the country is five times higher than assumed, RTL Nieuws reports.

Unlicensed escort agencies and pimps in the Netherlands will soon face criminal prosecution, according to agreements made by the VVD, CDA, D66 and ChristenUnie in their government formation talks, RTL Nieuws reports. The new government wants a harsher approach to illegal prostitution as part of the fight against human trafficking, sources confirmed to the broadcaster.

Under current Dutch law, illegal prostitution companies can get an administrative fine for working without a license. In the future they will face criminal prosecution, with prison being a possible punishment. 

The number of people prosecuted for human trafficking in the Netherlands last year, was a quarter lower than the year before, NRC reported on Monday based on figures from the Council for the Judiciary. This does not necessarily mean that human trafficking decreased, but rather that the police are giving priority to other crimes, experts said to the newspaper.

Last year 103 people were convicted of human trafficking, compared to 139 in 2015 and 156 in 2013. 

The Dutch police arrested 60 people last week in a national action against roaming criminal gangs. Detainees include suspected shoplifters, drug traffickers and dealers, burglars and identity thieves, the police announced in a statement.

A Venezuelan man confessed to killing Dutch cop Ferry Bakx after the officer caught him and others in the act of a robbery on Bonaire in August last year. The confession was made on the first day of a three-day trial against six Venezuelans and one man from Bonaire for Bakx's murder, RTL Nieuws reports.