The lifting of the ban on brothels twenty years ago did not deliver what we had hoped for. That is what Warner ten Kate, national human trafficking officer, says.
The lifting of the ban on brothels in 2000 was intended to regulate voluntary prostitution, combat involuntary prostitution and combat abuses. That did not work. “The last fifteen years that I have been doing this work, we have seen a lot of human trafficking cases that started in legal prostitution. Having a legal sector does not rule that out. That is the reality,” said Ten Kate. Moreover, the illegal sector has not become smaller.
According to the national officer, a continuation of the current policy means that human trafficking cannot be combated properly. “Because you have a legal sector, you create the possibility that women can work here, without noticing if they don’t want to.” And because the police are no longer checking on brothels due to a lack of capacity, signals of human trafficking will be missed even more often.
Despite the legalization, a lot of prostitution still takes place under the radar. ‘Sandra’ comes from Romania to the Netherlands at the age of 18 and is misled by a Romanian couple. She says she was forced into prostitution by them:
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Sandra was forced into prostitution: “I sometimes had seven customers a day”
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Since Hungary joined the EU in 2004, and Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, many women from those countries have come to the Netherlands to work in prostitution. “It is a penny change. In the beginning it was mainly Bulgaria, then a very large stream came from Hungary in the early 1990s. Now it is mostly Romanian women who come here to work.”
Mouthful prostitute
The basic principle of the legislator about women working in prostitution is ‘the average articulate prostitute’. This reference point, which was adopted by the Supreme Court in 2002, assumes that a prostitute at least decides where, when, with whom, under what circumstances and against what yields she works.
According to Ten Kate, this reference point does not apply to the many Eastern European women who work in prostitution in the Netherlands. “The moment you come here as a foreign woman, you don’t know the mores. Many of these women depend on others who show them the way. We often see that this vulnerable position is being abused.”
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What we have to get rid of is the idea that this is a normal job, it is a very dangerous job.
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For the past twenty years, the police have played an important role in the control of brothels, but the National Police have now informed all municipalities to stop this because of a lack of capacity. Since this year, civil servants of the municipality must in principle do the administrative checks themselves.
This worries the officer. “I don’t want to take anything away from municipal inspectors, but the fact is that they have fewer powers than the police. The municipal inspector is not a policeman or woman, so he does it with a different cap.” Ten Kate would prefer to see a combination check, in which municipal officials go along with the police.
After the abolition of the brothel ban, a licensing system was replaced. Municipalities determine themselves whether they issue permits for sex businesses and how many there are. A national law has not been provided so far, but there is a national law for consultation in the Senate: ‘the sex work regulation regulation’.
Protected environment
Ten Kate argues that the new law should at least include a registration of prostitutes. “To prevent them from becoming invisible and ending up in the carousel systems.” Ten Kate indicates that there are many ‘pros and cons’ to think of when registering, but he believes that clear supervision and a control system are essential.
Ten Kate is also of the opinion that prostitutes must report in a protected environment before they start work. Without a pimp or exploiter. So that they can speak freely and so that they can test whether someone is a victim or not.
“What we have to get rid of is the idea that this is a normal job, it is a very dangerous job. And experience shows that once you get into it, it is very difficult to get out.”
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