prosecution

ANPTer illustration – A girl sitting on her bed

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 06:32

Milo Hornstra

Domestic Editor

Milo Hornstra

Domestic Editor

People who have sex with a minor for payment often receive a limited prison sentence compared to the requirement. The Public Prosecution Service is asking for much higher sentences, but the judge has ruled differently, according to research by the Center for Child Trafficking and Human Trafficking.

It is a criminal offense to have paid sex with a minor. The judge must impose a prison sentence for such an offense. In sixty percent of cases, the judge imposes only one day in prison, in combination with community service.

The penalties demanded by the Public Prosecution Service are often much higher. In almost all cases, the Public Prosecution Service believes that a prison sentence of more than one month should be imposed.

“There is a big difference in insight between the judiciary and us,” says Warner ten Kate, human trafficking prosecutor at the Public Prosecution Service. “Since 2015, we have attached great importance to these types of matters and have focused our efforts on them.”

Ten Kate points to a case in which a 16-year-old girl was forced to have paid sex with dozens of men in a hotel in Valkenburg. The men were sentenced to one day in prison with community service, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Community service is also a serious punishment.

Jacco Janssen, judge and spokesperson for the Council for the Judiciary

“We have since taken more cases to court and drawn up our own guidelines for them,” says Ten Kate. “But the judge does not always follow us in sentencing.”

As spokesperson for his colleagues, Judge Jacco Janssen states that knowledge of the age is of great importance for a ruling. “If the suspect really knows that it is a minor, he will receive a high prison sentence, with four months as orientation. But if it is not likely that the suspect knew, then we will impose a lower sentence.”

He adds that community service is also a serious punishment. “It also has a preventive effect. A prison sentence encourages the convict to relapse. With community service, you can stay with your family and work, which makes life better after the sentence.”

Shamir Ceuleers of the Center for Child and Human Trafficking (CKM) looks at this differently. “The judge must start to view customers differently. International law requires that customers be seen as one of the core causes of human trafficking. Yet in the Netherlands, the judge seems to regard customers mainly as innocent bystanders, who are punishable because the law prescribes so.”

Files from more than a hundred lawsuits from 2015 to 2019 were included in the research. Forty minors are involved in these cases. For each file, the penalties demanded and imposed, the characteristics of the convicted persons and minors and how the contact came about were examined.

Three months ago, the CKM advocated more knowledge about clients of forced prostitution. This research shows that all convicts are men, with an average age of 37 years. At the time of the offense, most men were in a relationship and had children. A third already had a criminal record.

Almost all minors are girls. Although most were 16 or 17 years old during sex, there was also a 13-year-old child. The minors mainly lived at home with their parents. In most cases the appointment was arranged by a third person.

Websites that offer sex advertisements play an important role in this. In 80 percent of cases, the first contact was made via such a website. “These websites have been making money from exploitation and abuse of minors for years,” says Ceuleers of the CKM. “Yet they have not taken any action all this time. That is why action now needs to be taken in a different way.”

2023-12-12 05:32:11


#Prison #sentences #paid #sex #minor #required