CSW66 RENATE webinar 15^th March 2022

Twenty-two years of Anti Trafficking Laws,

what has been achieved

Ivonne van de Kar

Sisterworks (Zusterwerk) & RENATE the Netherlands

Human Trafficking and the Law

• In 1999, the Netherlands prepared their first anti trafficking law.
• Concern from different sides
• Law and Order -> crime fighting (police, prosecution)
• Women's organisations -> concern for women victims
• Years of discussion between women's groups and law enforcement ended
• One big change: police officer / vice detective trained to be a social worker.
• His colleagues trusted him + social workers and women's groups trusted him
• One social worker / women’s advocate -> human rights layer
• Her colleagues trusted her + law enforcement trusted her

We all agreed we were working to help the victims

• First constructive talks about how to stop the criminal networks and how to help the victims

Before 1999 Dutch ‘prostitution’ law

• Before 1999 Dutch ‘prostitution’ law was only a ‘brothel ban’
• Running a brothel was a crime
• Earning money on the exploitation of another person was a crime
• Facilitating the prostitution of a person was a crime
• Prostitution itself was no crime (it has never been a crime)
• from 1911 a woman in prostitution was considered a victim of circumstances or a victim of force.
• Street prostitution / drug addicts trying to earn money in prostitution
• In 70s and 80s policy of tolerance; well organised Dutch cities had to find clean solutions for street/car prostitution (photo)
• Law enforcement and social workers agreed: this had to stop.
• Interesting is that Sweden had the same discussion with the opposite result. I will not go into that now.

We needed a law to:

• Have the boundaries: what is allowed and what was illegal
• Police, law enforcement: trained to fight what was not allowed
• Arrest those who earn money with this crime
• Prostitution sector is heavily connected to organised crime
• Help the women/girls victims (there was no knowledge of male victims) : more finances to social work / anti trafficking work
• To assist the exploited foreign victims from Asia and Latin America
• Then: the world changed…

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We had a law; but the world changed

• The world changed:
• Internet came into our lives
• Sex-adds in newspapers disappeared
• International crime organisations from Eastern Europe got involved
• Collapse of the Soviet Union
• ‘poor’ women were nearby now
• Street prostitution disappeared, city after city
• Window brothels stayed: women ‘voluntarily’ worked there �(earning money is the right of a woman/person).
• Young Dutch girls found to work in window brothels for� the man they loved

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What also happened

• The first International accepted definition of Human Trafficking
• UNODC at their meeting in Palermo, 15 November 2000
• Palermo Protocol
• All international legislation based on that definition of Human Trafficking
• In the Netherlands the law (art.273 f sr)
• went after long discussions through parliament in 2000
• It is the largest item in the criminal lay, many components
• Since 2000 the law was reviewd every 5-7 years by Gov. research agency (wodc)
• Dutch National Rapporteur, independent office, reviews & advice to government
• Our problem:
• Law is primarily a Crime Fighting Law and not a Human Rights Law
• Focus is on criminal networks/crime fighting – law is not victim-centred

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EU Facts on Trafficking in Human Beings

https://ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficking/third-report-progress-made-fight-against-trafficking-human-beings_en

https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/policies/internal-security/organised-crime-and-human-trafficking/trafficking-human-beings_en

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20171012STO85932/human-trafficking-nearly-16-000-victims-in-the-eu