In recent years, probably over a hundred Dutch girls and young women have been exploited as prostitutes in Belgium and Germany, reports NOS television, citing a study by the Center for Trafficking in Children and Human Beings, part of the expert treatment center “Fire“. This group of victims remains almost unnoticed, the television noted, BTA reported.
This is the first study dedicated to Dutch victims of exploitation abroad.
According to the Center, cross-border exploitation is more common than previously thought. The study surveyed over 200 social workers, police officers and other professionals in the country and abroad. Between 2021 and 2023, dozens of social workers received reports that Dutch victims were forced to work in Belgium or Germany. The center estimates that there were at least 125 victims during this period, with the majority of them being exploited in Belgium. According to official records, only nine victims were known during these years, which, according to the center, proves that there is almost no information about the group of women forced into prostitution abroad.
In practice, most often these are girls and young women who still live at home or are placed in institutions. Some of them are still minors. Often the victims were exploited in the Netherlands.
Across the border, they had to receive clients in hotels, apartments, sex clubs and holiday parks. This often happened in villages just across the border or in large cities such as Antwerp and Duisburg.
The opposite also happens. Social workers also report cases of young women from Germany and Belgium who are forced into prostitution in the Netherlands.
According to one of the social workers involved in the study, the victims are "pin-ponged" with each other. They are sent to work in different places in different countries.
It is suspected that some girls are not only forced into prostitution but also into criminal activities, such as smuggling packages of drugs.
So far, almost nothing has been known about the exploitation of Dutch victims across the border. Even after this study, the full picture is still missing, but according to the Center for Child and Human Trafficking, the signals are so alarming that action must be taken.
It turns out that Dutch organizations have very limited contact with their counterparts across the border. “Except in cases of exploitation that require urgent action, contact and exchange of information hardly takes place“, the report states. This must change, the Center believes. The organization is calling on ministers in the Netherlands and abroad to develop a joint approach to combating sexual exploitation across national borders.