DUTCH MAINTAIN LEGALIZED PROSTITUTION IS TOOL TO

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 THE HAGUE 001148

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

STATE FOR G/TIP, G, PRM, IWI, EUR/PGI, EUR/UBI

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PREL ELAB SMIG KCRM KWMN NL
SUBJECT: DUTCH MAINTAIN LEGALIZED PROSTITUTION IS TOOL TO
FIGHT TIP

REF: (A) THE HAGUE 334

(B) THE HAGUE 829
(C) 05 THE HAGUE 0601
(D) THE HAGUE 399
(E) THE HAGUE 453
(F) THE HAGUE 913

THE HAGUE 00001148 001.3 OF 005



1. (SBU) Summary. In meetings with visiting G/TIP legal and
research consultant Luke Goodrich May 8 and 9, government,
police, and NGO representatives indicated that, overall,
legalization of prostitution has helped municipal
authorities fight crime, including trafficking in persons
(TIP),in the prostitution sector, but also suggested ways
to strengthen regulation and police controls. Many stated
that the number of prostitutes has not increased since
legalization and stressed that they viewed prostitution and
TIP as distinct issues. Several expressed the view that the
extent of TIP in the legalized sector was limited, but also
acknowledged that police controls were not foolproof and
could miss a significant number of victims. Many also
praised the new government-sponsored outreach campaign that
alerts prostitutes and their clients to the signs of
trafficking and urges them to report potential victims. End
Summary.

Local Views in Amsterdam and The Hague
--------------


2. (SBU) The 2000 law that lifted the ban on brothels gave
municipalities responsibility for regulating prostitution.
Amsterdam city councilor Karina Schaapman and municipal
officials responsible for regulating The Hague's licensed
sex establishments provided a local perspective on how those
cities handle regulation. They asserted that legalization
had helped both cities fight criminal activity in the
regulated sector and reduce the number of TIP victims by
opening a crucial window into the world of prostitution.
They conceded that there could still be a lot of TIP victims
within the regulated prostitution sector, but expressed much
more concern about unregulated sectors, such as escort
services. They credited the Public Administration Integrity
Act (BIBOB),which allows municipalities to check the
criminal background of license applicants, with giving local
governments more power over the legalized sector.


3. (SBU) Schaapman, a former prostitute and vocal advocate
for improved social services for prostitutes, recently
issued a report on the Amsterdam prostitution sector, with
recommendations for strengthening Amsterdam's prostitution
regulatory regime. She suggested steps the government could
take to improve the social situation of prostitutes, help
change the perception of women in society, and force clients
into the legal sex sector. She stated that the 2000
legislation had not resulted in an increase in the number of
TIP victims, and that the number of prostitutes and brothels
in Amsterdam had not increased since 2000 - though there had
been a shift in the nationality of the prostitutes.
Schaapman stated that Amsterdam needs more police to patrol
the red light district and that police controls should be
conducted more frequently and more thoroughly. She said
that police controls sometimes rely heavily on document
checks to determine whether prostitutes are underage or are
illegal immigrants; she expressed concern that a TIP victim
might go undiscovered because of convincingly forged
documents. However, she also lauded the police for pushing
the boundaries of what they are legally allowed to do to
detect TIP victims and illegal aliens working in the
unregulated escort sector. She said the increased focus on
terrorism had made it harder to obtain resources for other
police initiatives, including expanded prostitution
controls.


4. (SBU) Schaapman's main concern is with the unregulated
prostitution sectors. She welcomed the fact that Amsterdam
is developing an escort service licensing system, as The
Hague has already done, but noted that the city would need
additional funding and personnel to implement the policy.
She stressed that technology such as mobile phones and web
cams made it easier to start a sex business, and harder for
governments to monitor them. She also expressed frustration
with the prostitutes themselves, many of whom do not pay
taxes, stating that there was a lot of money in the business
that was not getting to the government. She supported
Amsterdam's decision to build a health center for

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prostitutes and a prostitution expertise center for police
within the red light district. She said she was pleased
that the city had limited the red light district by
purchasing houses located there and not allowing their use
for window prostitution. In response to questioning, she
acknowledged that the red light district was a tourist
attraction, adding that she did not approve of that.


5. (SBU) Schaapman stressed that TIP was not a result of
Dutch prostitution policy, but a worldwide problem that she
believed unlikely to be eliminated. Nevertheless, she added
that the Dutch brothel law provided needed information to
control the sector; if it were outlawed, she said, that
information would be lost. She mentioned that she had heard
Sweden had a large illegal prostitution market where there
is little knowledge of what happens. She argued against
adoption of a Swedish-style system, because it would result
in the loss of a lot of valuable information. She noted
that one drawback of legalization is that when prostitution
is legal, people conclude that it is also normal; she
suggested it was important for the government to send the
message that although prostitution is legal, it is not
normal. Schaapman said that Amsterdam and Rotterdam had
closed their street-walking zones, as have many other
municipalities, because of their vulnerability to
exploitation and drug addicts. In Amsterdam, she stated, a
high percentage (60% in one raid) of prostitutes in the
street-walking zones had been found to be TIP victims, while
raids on street-walking zones in Rotterdam had not found TIP
victims. [Note. Amsterdam's street-walking zone was closed
in December 2003. End Note.]

Regulation in The Hague
--------------


6. (SBU) A panel of The Hague city officials headed by Rob
Coster, former National Police Coordinator on Trafficking
and Prostitution and founder of The Hague police
prostitution screening team, explained that legalization had
allowed the city to impose strict requirements on sex
businesses within The Hague police region, the third largest
by population in the country. When brothels were legalized
in 2000, city officials capped the number of licenses for
sex businesses at 100, the number of such establishments in

1999. Licenses are approved by the Mayor, and are valid for
one year. Bart Ludwig, the Mayor's policy advisor, said
that as a result of the additional controls available under
the BIBOB law, The Hague was now considering making licenses
valid for two years. Escort services are regulated under
The Hague's licensing system. The street-walking zone was
recently closed.


7. (SBU) Coster credited the 2000 law for giving The Hague
officials the tools to reduce crime in the sex industry. He
said it was clear that the current approach that regulates
prostitution was better with regard to TIP than the "closed
system" that existed prior to 2000. Within the first three
months of the lifting of the ban on brothels, The Hague
closed 10 to 20 brothels for violations of license
requirements; they continue to close 2 to 3 every year for
various crimes, including the presence of a minor, or of an
illegal or trafficked worker. Less severe violations are
penalized with warnings or with a temporary closure of the
establishment, usually for one or three months. The Hague
imposes temporary closures three to five times per year, but
as these penalties impose a major financial burden on the
owners, most establishments strive to remain compliant.
Coster said that The Hague was one of the strictest cities
in the Netherlands when it comes to enforcing regulations on
legalized prostitution. Other municipalities, particularly
rural ones such as Groningen, are less experienced with
regulating the sex industry, or are more lenient. Coster
suggested that The Netherlands should adopt a national
enforcement policy to prevent criminal enterprises from
simply relocating to areas where enforcement is weaker.


8. (SBU) Police controls in The Hague police district are
conducted by a specialized force comprised of 19 officers
who receive nearly one year of training in areas such as
document screening, identifying TIP victims, and child
pornography. These officers team with local police to cover
the 16 municipalities in the district. The police conduct
unannounced investigations of sex establishments at all
times of day. Some visits are more in depth than others;

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according to Coster, police develop a feel for which
establishments require closer scrutiny. Inspections can
include questioning the owner, inspecting the rooms for
compliance with health and safety codes, interviewing the
prostitutes and checking their documents. If there is a
question about the validity of a document, the officers can
go to Schiphol airport to consult with Immigration document
experts. When asked about the large number of foreign-born
prostitutes with apparently legitimate documentation, Coster
conceded that it was possible that a large number of such
women are potential victims. He added that many women,
attracted by the money they could make, knowingly pay for
false documentation. [Comment. As noted by other contacts,
not all foreign-born prostitutes with false documents have
been trafficked. End Comment.]


9. (SBU) According to Coster, police who conduct
prostitution controls spend a lot of time on the street, in
order to build trust with the prostitutes. Immediately
after legalization, The Hague police visited sex
establishments every day. Now that city officials and
police are confident that they have very good control over
the sector, they inspect at least once a month. Coster said
that the police across the country receive the same training
on how to conduct controls, adding that he had trained them
himself as National Police Coordinator on Trafficking and
Prostitution. Coster and Ludwig both felt that The Hague is
effectively controlling the sex industry and added that some
sex businesses, especially those in border cities, have
moved out of The Netherlands because of the strict
requirements they face under regulation. Coster also
acknowledged that legalization means the government has two
sectors to deal with (the licensed and unlicensed) instead
of just one illegal industry, and that the government needs
additional capacity and alternative strategies to deal
effectively with the unlicensed sector. He noted that
government failure to adequately investigate and prosecute
violations in the unlicensed sector would result in the
licensed sector facing unfair competition and losing the
incentive to comply with licensing restrictions.

National TIP Center Highlights Police Techniques
-------------- ---


10. (SBU) Warner Ten Kate, National TIP Prosecutor, and Rene
Nuijten, Deputy Head of the North and East Netherlands
Police, provided an overview of the National Expertise
Center for Human Trafficking and Smuggling (EMM),the
interagency resource center for TIP investigations and
prosecutions that opened in mid-2005. Hank Werson, the head
of the unit responsible for training police to conduct
prostitution controls and detect trafficking victims stated
that police nationwide are required to make surprise
inspections of licensed operations at least six times per
year. Over 500 police officers have been trained to conduct
the inspections. He said that an interview kit had been
developed in 2004 to train officers on appropriate methods
to question prostitutes to gain their trust and avoid
degrading them.


11. (SBU) Echoing The Hague officials, Werson stressed that
spending time on the streets to build credibility with
prostitutes was crucial. Werson added that the high
mobility of some prostitutes made building trust more
difficult. He expressed hope that the Expertise Center's
centralized database of police reports on potential TIP
cases would improve coordination between police districts to
reduce the adverse impact of mobility on investigations. He
stated that each time police inspect a licensed sex
establishment, officers talk to every prostitute in the
establishment and provide them with their business cards
with a phone number where they can be reached at all times.
Werson reported that he recently had accompanied The Hague
police on brothel inspections and was present when they
received a tip from a prostitute about a minor working in
another club. As a result of that tip, the police were able
to remove the minor and close the club. Werson attributed
the success of the investigation to the trust built up
between the police and the prostitute.

National Victim Registrar Helps Train Police
--------------


12. (SBU) When police discover a TIP victim, they contact

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the Foundation Against Trafficking in Women (STV),the
national registration office for TIP victims. STV registers
the victims and coordinates with a network of service
providers to place them in appropriate shelters and provide
social services. STV also participates in police training
to instruct the police on how to deal with trafficking
victims. Director Maria de Cock stressed that STV
considered trafficking to be totally different from
prostitution. She said that STV does not request the police
to provide information on the type of establishments (i.e.,
licensed or unlicensed) in which trafficking victims are
found. She said that legalization is an ongoing process,
noting that prostitution had always been linked to criminal
activities, and it would therefore take time to make it a
"clean" business. She said that the increase in the number
of identified victims since 2000 was not necessarily an
indication that there were more TIP victims in the country.
Rather, she suggested, improved cooperation among police,
government authorities and the STV since 2000 had helped to
better identify those victims that are here.

National Government Perspective
--------------


13. (SBU) Goodrich asked officials from the Ministries of
Justice (MOJ) and Foreign Affairs (MFA),about the ongoing
MOJ study on the impact of the lifting of the ban on
brothels in 2000. MOJ Senior Policy Advisor Sasja Hulscher,
who sits on the study steering committee, said that results
are not yet available, but that preliminary results are
expected by July. She added that the committee is already
trying to anticipate some of the findings, and proactively
develop legislative proposals to rectify possible weaknesses
in the current legislation.


14. (SBU) Andre van Wiggen, Deputy Director of the MFA's
Terrorism and New Threats division (which handles TIP
issues) protested attempts to link prostitution with
trafficking, stressing that the GONL considers legalization
a domestic policy matter. The government would continue to
assess the policy as needed to ensure that it was working as
intended. Refering to the recent United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report on global trafficking trends,
he further stated that because the Dutch are so open and
maintain and publish such thorough statistics, they are
often unfairly singled out for criticism and analysis. The
focus, he said, should be on strengthening cooperation to
combat TIP, citing the anti-TIP cooperation item in the 2005
bilateral "Next Steps" law enforcement action plan as a good
example of such cooperation.

TIP Rapporteur: No Rise in TIP victims in Sex Sector
-------------- --------------


15. (SBU) Asked about municipal regulation of prostitution
businesses, senior staff of the office of the National
Rapporteur for Trafficking in Persons stated that
municipalities are free to keep licensed sex businesses out
through administrative licensing policies, but not for moral
reasons alone. They also stated that the question of
whether prostitution had increased or decreased as a result
of legalization was irrelevant - if it is regulated and
legal, the size of the prostitution sector was not a
concern. The Rapporteur does not report on the number of
TIP victims identified in the legal and the illegal
prostitution sectors; the Rapporteur relies on information
from public prosecutors and police, who do not provide this
information, and the Rapporteur does not specifically
request it. The staff noted that, from their perspective,
the trend in trafficking within the sex industry as a whole
was of more interest, and they have not seen a rise in that
trend. Referring to the rise in the number of TIP victims
registered by STV since legalization in 2000, the Rapporteur
staff stated that it was unclear whether this rise was due
to the inclusion of Dutch victims in the more recent
statistics, increased police attention to the legalized
sector, or an actual rise in the number of victims. [Note.
Under Dutch TIP law, internal victims are included in TIP
statistics. End Note.] They stated that they are
increasingly realizing that "numbers are relative," and that
it is very difficult to discern actual trends from available
statistics. The staff stressed that all economic sectors
are susceptible to TIP and that all should be looked at
evenly, and they lamented the special focus that is often

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placed on prostitution.

Scarlet Cord: Prostitutes Attracted by the Money
-------------- ---


16. (SBU) Toos Heemskerk of the Scarlet Cord, a faith-based
NGO that provides assistance to prostitutes, told Goodrich
that high prices for prostitution, together with laws in the
Netherlands make prostitution an attractive option for women
from foreign countries who want to make lots of money in a
short time. The problem, according to Heemskerk, is that
many women attracted by the money actually end up with large
debts, and then find it very difficult to leave prostitution
or to profit as much as they had expected. This could be
due to a variety of factors, such as family members at home
that depend on the money, over-spending, taking out loans to
get false documents, or becoming indebted to the smuggler or
trafficker who assisted them, she said. Heemskerk added
that it was difficult for the police to detect those who had
come voluntarily, but then found themselves "trapped" in
prostitution because of debt. Heemskerk, who has worked
with prostitutes in the red light district of Amsterdam for
almost 10 years, stated that she hasn't noticed any growth
in the number of window prostitutes over that time. She
said she did not know whether there had been growth in sex
clubs. Heemskerk appreciated GONL funding of programs to
help prostitutes get out of the business, but suggested the
government should provide more such funding. She echoed
Schaapman's criticisms that too few police work in the red
light district and that many prostitutes and brothel owners
do not pay taxes; she suggested that the BIBOB law would
improve the situation. Heemskerk suggested the government
should assist prostitutes by imposing a requirement that all
brothel owners post a sign with a number prostitutes can
call for help, and a requirement that each municipality
establish a program to help prostitutes leave the sex
industry. She echoed the comments of several others that
government programs like the campaign to educate clients
about TIP and the anonymous TIP reporting line were positive
steps.

Criminologist: `Loverboys' are Pimps
--------------


18. (SBU) Utrecht criminologist Frank Bovenkerk told
Goodrich that Dutch women exploited by "loverboys" are
essentially victims of trafficking by modern-day pimps, with
whom they have a complex, dysfunctional relationship,
sometimes involving physical violence. He was critical of
police controls on the legalized prostitution sector, in
particular their capacity for detecting "loverboys." He said
that police have sufficient powers to take action against
"loverboys," and suggested that a few high-profile
prosecutions under current laws would help deter the
phenomenon. He added that some of the beat police who
patrol Amsterdam's red light district complain that there is
insufficient follow-up to criminal complaints received from
prostitutes and passed on to the vice squad.


19. (SBU) Comment. Dutch officials have consistently
maintained that the lifting of the ban on brothels in 2000
was intended as a tool to fight trafficking in persons in
the prostitution sector. While government, police and NGO
contacts acknowledged that the regulated sector is not
completely free of trafficking victims, there was consensus,
even among those critical of police controls, that the
controls had resulted in the reduction of overall
criminality, and in the number of trafficking victims in
that sector. None suggested that the legalization of
prostitution had led to any measurable increase in the
number of TIP victims or prostitutes in the country. End
Comment.

Arnall