National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

The expansion of the Schengen area at the start of 2008 to include the Central
and Eastern European countries that acceded to the EU in 2004 may cause the
routes to change. Instead of transporting (potential) victims via Southern Europe
or through airports, traffickers may prefer the new eastern borders
of the Schengen area because they are more difficult to guard.
2.6.7 Conclusion
The scale of exploitation in the prostitution sector is difficult to determine.
In recent years the number of (potential) victims recorded has varied between
over 400 to almost 600 a year. In recent years more and more Dutch victims
have been recorded. The number of credible reports of human trafficking
received by the police forces is significantly higher. In 2005 there were more than
700 reports and in the first nine months of 2006 there were more than 1,100.
The early stage of the offender-victim relationship is often consensual and
becomes violent at a later stage. The diffuse line between voluntary and
involuntary involvement of the victims (the ‘loverboy method’, for example)
makes it difficult to trace and prosecute suspects. The scale of human trafficking
in connection with prostitution is not expected to drop in future in the current
circumstances. The consequences for society are serious, especially as regards
the damage to the personal living environment of the victims in a mental,
physical and financial sense. Prostitution-related human trafficking is therefore
a threat to Dutch society.
Exploitation in other sectors is a subject about which little information is
available as yet from criminal investigations. In the future the focus of the police
and the judicial authorities on these other sectors will probably increase, but
there are currently many questions that cannot yet be answered. The scale of
the exploitation, for example, is unknown, both in the legal and illegal sectors
where people are put to work. In addition, the circumstances under which
people are put to work (including the use of physical and psychological violence)
are unclear, as is the extent to which criminal organisations are involved. In the
current circumstances it is difficult to estimate the consequences for society,
which is why the subject ‘exploitation in other sectors’ has been qualified as
a blank spot. Further investigations should focus separately on exploitation
in criminal activities, because that is not an area that is subject to monitoring
and regulations.
chapter 2 – Illegal markets
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