The situation of Trafficking
Trafficking turned up for the political agenda after stress regarding feminists and you can brand new national ladies coverage department. To begin with, women had been trafficked away from The southern area of China (notably Thailand and the Philippines), Latin America (Columbia plus the Dominican Republic and you can Africa (Ghana); after the fall of your own Berlin Wall structure, trade routes shifted so you’re able to Central and Eastern Europe. Governmental demands have been determining new offense way more generally to help you helps prosecution and you may increasing the penalty from five to six ages, with the intention that culprits is stored into the remand infant custody. Brand new content about penal password with the human trafficking was in fact changed in 1993, having a appropriate definition of new offense and better charges to have traffickers (Outshoorn 2004a: 195). The fresh blogs was in fact framed inside the good gender-neutral means, and you will trafficking remained identified as forcing a guy on the prostitution.
In the parliamentary debates on trafficking around that period, foreign women were portrayed as victims of unscrupulous traffickers tricked into prostitution. This framing was tied into a https://escortbabylon.de/en/switzerland/st-gallen-state/st-gallen discourse about the divide between the rich and poor countries: female prostitutes from the ‘Third World’ were driven by poverty. Gradually, a more insidious edge crept into this discourse when Christian Democrats in parliament linked trafficking to illegal migration, opening a space for ‘false’ victims, who used the loopholes in the law to work illegally as a prostitute in the Netherlands (HTK, 1991–1992, TK 81, pp. 4994, 4995, e time they also started to argue that all women from non-EU countries working in the sex industry were victims of forced prostitution. Therefore in their view, the best remedy to stop trafficking was to prevent non-EU women from working in the Dutch sex industry in the first place. This reasoning eradicated the figure of a woman migrant deciding to work as a sex worker in the West and who might make use of intermediaries to enter the country-with her consent. But then she was ‘illegal’ and ought to be deported.
Successive cabinets continued to refuse work permits on similar grounds, also arguing there was no national interest at stake which normally justifies extending work permits to non-EU persons. They were backed by a recurring majority in parliament; the parliamentary records show many references to the fear of foreign prostitutes entering the country which would subvert immigration policies. The fear resurfaced in the memorandum to the bill to lift the brothel ban, as one of the aims of the bill was to halt ‘the stream of foreign prostitutes’ (HTK 1996–97, 25437 (Opheffing Algemeen Bordeelverbod), no. 3 (Memorie van Toelichting), 1 July 1997, p. 13). The refusal to grant work permits was also generally justified by the aim of stopping the trafficking of women; permits would encourage traffickers to transport women into the country.
Categories of Sex Workers
Then implementation of this new work triggered the development out-of zero less than four categories of prostitutes. To begin with, you’ve got the ethnically vague Dutch sex employee exactly who voluntarily chooses to be effective within the prostitution which is the bearer away from civil and you can public legal rights. Next, you will find the latest prostitutes off their European union countries who will disperse freely inside and out of the Netherlands and operate in brand new sex community. These kinds split up into a few classes pursuing the accession on the European union of the Baltic Claims, Poland, Hungary, the new Czech Republic and you can Slovakia from inside the 2004, and work out a 3rd class just who are only able to legitimately become prostitutes once they was independent sex gurus and never staff. In 2007, sex specialists on the newest Eu people have been accepted to your an enthusiastic equal ground with the earlier European union member gurus, nevertheless third category are now filled up with sex gurus out of Bulgaria and you will Romania whenever each other places entered the fresh European union in that same year. Just like their predecessors, these types of women are permitted to behave as separate sex gurus, however, yet less professionals.