Prevalence of women convicted for human trafficking

When a perpetrator enters the Dutch criminal justice system, she and her crime are recorded at several levels. First, a perpetrator and her case are registered by the police, after which the case may be sent to the prosecution service where it is then registered. A perpetrator is then called a suspect and she is charged with the crime. When the prosecutor decides to bring the case in front of a judge, the case goes to court where a judge decides on the case, conviction or acquittal. All the cases went to trial because the Netherlands does not have a system of plea-bargaining, which implies that all cases have been convicted for the main charge(s).

In the current research group, 712 women in total were suspected of trafficking in human beings (including 19 juvenile offenders) in the period 1991–2016, and 422 women (including 15 juvenile offenders) were convicted. Over a period of 23 years, this amounts to an average of 30 suspects and 18 convicts per year.

The number of cases notified to the Public Prosecution Service varies greatly, which can also be seen in Fig. 1. Therefore, it is difficult to make inferences about the effect of, for example, a stricter investigation policy.Footnote 2

Fig. 1 Number of female suspects of human trafficking between 1991 and 2016 Full size image

The average age of the offenders at the time of the offense was 32.3 years (minimum 18 years, maximum 71 years, median 30.0). Table 1 shows in which regions the women were born. The majority of women (50.6%) were born in a country in Eastern Europe. Perpetrators born in the Netherlands constituted more than a quarter (25.9%) of the research group.

Table 1 Region of birth of women convicted for human trafficking Full size table

Prosecution characteristics of women convicted for human trafficking

In this section, all cases (N = 138) will be discussed, as this section is based on the data from the judicial documentation. In 7.2% of cases (N = 10), no decision was known yet. In 11.5% of the cases (N = 16), there is a policy dismissal, for example because the suspect is untraceable, there is insufficient national interest, the suspect is accountable for a small part of the offense, or the defendant has already been affected by the facts and consequences. These policy dismissals count as a valid decision and can, therefore, be viewed as someone convicted of this offense [31]. In 81.2% of the cases (N = 112), the case resulted in a conviction.

Table 2 depicts how often specific sanctions have been imposed. If a sanction was imposed by the court, more than three quarters (77.6%) of all women had a prison sentence with an unconditional part or a completely unconditional prison sentence. The average number of unconditional days the women had to spend in detention was 479 (minimum = 2, maximum = 1825, SD = 453).

Table 2 Imposed sanctions Full size table

Offender characteristics

The results in the following sections are based on the 96 cases which were able to analyze through scoring the court files or having obtained information about the case through rechtspraak.nl.

From the legal article used in the past decades for the description of human trafficking (273f, 273a 250ter, 250a), specific forms of exploitation are not identified. However, this information could be retrieved from the court files. This information showed that the majority of women, 85 (88.5%), were convicted for sexual exploitation and 11 (11.5%) for labor exploitation. Trafficking in human beings with the aim of organ removal, forced marriage, forced adoption, and criminal exploitation were not present in the research group.

Of the women convicted of sexual exploitation (85), 50.8% had worked as a prostitute, and 28.3% still worked as a prostitute at the time of the offense. It is striking that few characteristics about the perpetrator were present in the court files. Apart from the country of birth and place of birth, and whether the women were active in prostitution, little was mentioned about personal characteristics. For only 9 women, information was available from, for example, the probation service, and for 5 women (3.6%) this report was also physically present in the criminal file.

Less than a third (31.3%) of the women confessed (a part of) the offense. There was no difference in confessing between women involved in sexual exploitation or labor exploitation. As an explanation for committing the offense, the women indicated, among other things, that they were afraid of their male co-offender and, therefore, contributed to the exploitation, that they cooperated out of love for their male co-offender, that they had committed the offense because of the money (‘illegal employees work harder than legal employees’), or that by having an extra income they could stop working as a prostitute themselves. Finally, some women mentioned that they wanted to help the victim(s) because they could earn more money working as a prostitute in the Netherlands than in their country of origin.

Offense characteristics

The majority (94.7%) of women committed the offense together with others. On average, the partnerships consisted of 3.1 perpetrators (including the female perpetrator). The majority of the co-offenders were male (75.3%), whereas a minority of the women had male and female co-offenders (13.8%), or only female co-offenders (1.4%). It is striking that for many women (72.7%), their co-offender was also the man with whom they have or have had a romantic relationship. There was no significant difference for the women involved in sexual exploitation and those involved in labor exploitation. On average, 4 victims were involved in the offense. Except for one case (involving a transsexual victim), only female victims were involved in the cases of sexual exploitation. In the cases of labor exploitation, only male victims were mentioned 6 times, 3 times male and female victims, and 2 times only female victims.

Behavioral acts committed by the women

The behavioral acts for which the women were convicted diverged considerably. An overview of the behaviors as described in the files is presented in Table 3. The total number of actions is more than 96, because women may have been convicted for performing several actions. Therefore, only absolute numbers and no percentages are mentioned in this table.

Table 3 Behavioral acts as described in the files Full size table

The five most common acts mentioned were collecting money (44), housing victims (28), controlling victims during their work (25), exploiting (24), and taking away and keeping passports or travel documents (21). It was difficult to derive the level of management from the files: women often denied a certain degree of management, probably as a criminal defense strategy. They turned in male perpetrators or victims provided contradictory statements about who had the day-to-day management in, for example, the sex club where they worked. Because of this contradiction and ambiguity, it was decided not to make any further statements about this aspect. Below, the roles and behaviors of the women are explained in more detail on the basis of a number of issues. Three cases of sexual exploitation and one case of labor exploitation are described, since this distribution reflects the prevalence in the data. For the cases of sexual exploitation one case with a solo offender was selected and two cases with co-offenders, since this is also representative of the data. Finally, to provide an adequate image of the data, a co-offender with an underaged victim and a co-offender with an adult victim were selected.

Brigitta was a 29-year-old Hungarian woman. She has been found guilty of trafficking 4 young Hungarian women, together with her Hungarian husband and a second Hungarian man, over a period of 4 years. The women were brought to the Netherlands under false pretenses (working as a dancer). Brigitta and her husband accommodated the women and they were not allowed to go outside independently or travel to their windows in the prostitution area. Everyday the women were told they had a large debt and had to recoup this. The debt was also increased through substantial fines, for example if a woman had spoken to a co-occupant or had smoked during working hours. The women were checked every day and, fearing they and their family were being affected, they did not dare to leave Brigitta and her co-offenders. To keep the victims ‘under control’, they were sometimes raped by the men. Brigitta claimed to the Court that she was under pressure of her husband. This was not deemed plausible because her husband spent a period abroad and was detained for a period of time. According to the court, Brigitta could have made other choices. The Court of Appeal imposed a prison sentence of 30 months, of which 16 months conditional.

Rose was a 35-year- old Dutch woman who was working as an escort-girl. She was looking for a girl with whom she could advertise for threesomes and, therefore, she asked the 17-year-old victim. Rose had met the victim previously at parties and she knew the victim was interested because she needed money. She knew the victim was underaged. Rose told the victim that her boyfriend had cheated on her and that there was no reason anymore for the victim to consider his feelings regarding working as an escort-girl. If the victim would not cooperate, she would get beaten up. The exploitation took place during a couple of weeks. In court, Rose told that she did not threaten the victim but that she was aware that she should not have asked the victim to join her because she was under 18. Rose was convicted to a community service order of 100 h.

Inge was a 22-year-old Dutch woman. For a period of a week, she and her boyfriend Jan encouraged a 16-year-old girl to work as a prostitute. Jan picked up the victim at a train station after she ran away from a youth institution. Inge placed advertisements on kinky.nl (a sex website), and made arrangements with customers for the victim. The victim was instructed to tell she was an adult. She was brought to customers and checked by Inge and Jan. She was instructed to have unprotected sex because this resulted in more money. The victim filed a report after a week. Inge said “If I had known it afterwards, I would never have done it. I never forced her, it was all voluntary. She wanted everything herself. I do not know how old she was. At one point she left and started working for someone else. Others have also stated that she had worked as a prostitute before. I think it is all very much exaggerated “. The court imposed a prison sentence of 6 months.

Yena was a 54-year-old Chinese woman. For a period of 4 months, she and her Chinese husband employed an illegal Chinese man in their restaurant. The man had to do preparatory work there, such as cutting meat and vegetables, and cleaning. He worked 6 to 7 days a week, 10 h a day. For these activities, he received € 800 per month, including board, lodging, and holiday allowance. During audits by authorities, an alarm signal was used and the man had to hide in a secret hideout. The victim received too little salary, but he did not dare to say anything about it to the couple. He had a fake passport and no residence permit. He suspected that if he would mention anything about his salary, he would be sent away immediately. It was difficult for him to find a job in the hospitality industry, so he was happy with everything he could find. The man was discovered during a labor inspection operation. Yena indicated that she consciously employed illegal workers because they worked harder (as it is more difficult for them to find work). The Court of Appeal imposed a conditional fine of € 10,000 on the woman.

Victim characteristics

Regarding the age of the victim, 32.3% of the cases involved a minor victim (under 18 years of age).

There was no difference between the cases involving sexual exploitation and labor exploitation.

However, women who co-offended with a romantic partner had significantly less often an underage victim than women who co-offended with someone with whom they were not romantically involved ((Chi2 (1) = 4.992, p < .05). Furthermore, underage victims were more often found working in the escort sector or the unlicensed prostitution sector (e.g. massage parlors, private brothels in someone’s home, or street prostitution) (Chi2 (1) = 13.682, p < .001). In Table 4, the birth regions of the victims are compared with the birth regions of the perpetrators. This table shows that, in the majority of cases, perpetrators and victims originate from the same region. Therefore, it is rare for a victim to have a perpetrator who was not born in the same country as he or she was born. The most important exception to this relates to women who were born in the Netherlands: they more often have victims from Eastern Europe than from the Netherlands.

Table 4 Birth regions victims compared with birth regions offenders Full size table

For offenders originating from Eastern Europe, the three most common countries of birth were Hungary (19 times), Romania (10 times), and Bulgaria (9 times). When for these three groups was examined from which countries their victims originate, it showed that Hungarian perpetrators had Hungarian victims, Romanian perpetrators had 90% Romanian victims and 10% Hungarian victims, and that perpetrators from Bulgaria had victims from Bulgaria.

Deception and economic vulnerability

In a third (33.8%) of the cases, the victim was deceived. Victims were told that they would work in the Netherlands as an au pair, companion for seniors, cleaning lady, or dancer. In the Netherlands, the women were employed as prostitutes very soon, often within a few days. This also means that, for a majority of the victims, there was no deception, at least not in the sense of promising a particular profession. Among the victims who knew in which sector (prostitution, vegetable cultivation) they would work, there was a different kind of deception at a later stage, namely that they received no, or too little, of their earnings.

Without exception, all victims were ‘chosen’ because of their economic vulnerability. Perpetrators sometimes also indicated this during their police questioning. In the cases of sexual exploitation, female sex club owners were genuinely surprised at what rate foreign prostitutes wanted to do their work. According to them, a Dutch prostitute would never have done this. Female victims of sexual exploitation indicated that they were already working in prostitution in their country of origin and had come to the Netherlands to earn more money here. They found the higher earnings attractive. Finally, because prostitution in the Netherlands is legal, this resulted in a more peaceful life. They no longer had to circumvent the police. In the case of Yena, discussed above, the woman preferred to have illegal employees, because they always worked harder than legal employees because of fear to be reported to the police.

Sexually exploited female perpetrators

The analysis of the court files demonstrates that only 7.5% (N = 7) of the women were victims of sexual exploitation before they became perpetrators. In 2 cases there was a policy dismissal and the other 5 women received an unconditional prison sentence (of which 3 with a conditional part). These groups are too small to perform statistical analyses. Therefore, it was decided to describe three cases involving a victim who herself has become a perpetrator.

Selina is a 25-year-old woman who was born in Latvia. She was approached in a discotheque in her homeland by Max, also originating from Latvia. He asked her if she was interested in earning a lot of money as an escort in the Netherlands. The distribution was 50% for Max and 50% for Selina. She was interested and she accompanied him to the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, she had to hand over her passport to Max. He registered her at several escort agencies. Every day she gave over 90% of her earnings to Max. When she protested against this, he said her money was safer with him than in the house where she lived with the other prostitutes. He told her that she could keep more money, if she went back to Latvia to recruit women for him who could work in the escort service in the Netherlands. Back in Latvia, Selina noticed that several women she spoke to did not respond enthusiastically to working in prostitution. When she approached women later on, she told them she could arrange work as a cleaner. By doing this, she managed to recruit at least one victim. In the Netherlands, the women were registered at an escort agency and Selina transported the victims by car to the customers. One of the victims filed a report after having been assaulted by Max. The Public Prosecutor decided to conditionally close the case (under which condition was not clear from the file or the judicial documentation).

Ivonne is a Russian student who is in her early 20s. She came into contact with Dragan through a website. He told her that he had fallen in love with her and sent her text messages several times an hour telling her how much he loved her. He paid an airline ticket for her, so she could visit him. For a few months, they had a relationship in which Dragan and Ivonne visited expensive restaurants. Dragan bought designer clothes for her and they went on holiday together. At one point in time, he suggested her to work as an escort, so they would have more money. She could earn € 20,000 per month. Ivonne gave all earnings to him, because that would be safer. He also told her that with all that money they could later raise many children. At the same time, however, he also forced her to undergo an abortion when it turned out she was pregnant. When Ivonne indicated that she no longer wanted to work in prostitution, Dragan proposed that she should approach her friends in order to have them work in prostitution. She succeeded regarding one friend. The women were working in window prostitution and were taken to the office during a police check, where they filed a report. The Public Prosecutor decided to close the case, because Ivonne was already sufficiently affected by all the facts and the consequences.

Lydia is a Hungarian woman who is in her 30s. She came to the Netherlands with a forged passport to work in a sex club. She had to hand over a large proportion of her earnings to the owner of the club. After a while, she stopped working as a prostitute and she became manager of the same sex club. In the period she was a manager, several minors worked in the club. She kept the passports of all victims (at least 9 women). She insulted the women, if they did not work hard enough, and beat up the women. All women had to pay an average of 4000 euros in costs to the club’s owner. Lydia says she beat the women because she was told to do so by the owner. If she would not have done this, she would have been beaten up herself. She denies that she was the manager of the club. The Court considered the fact that Lydia should still be regarded as a victim in the period in which she was employed as a chief, and sees this as a reason to considerably mitigate the sanction. The Court imposed 12 months imprisonment, of which 3 months conditional.