The situation regarding Trafficking
Trafficking showed up with the political plan immediately after pressure out-of feminists and new federal ladies rules department. To start with, female was trafficked out of The southern area of China (somewhat Thailand together with Philippines), Latin America (Columbia and also the Dominican Republic and Africa (Ghana); following the slip of Berlin Wall surface, trading paths managed to move on so you’re able to Main and East Europe. Governmental need were determining the new offence a lot more broadly to help you facilitate prosecution and you will improving the penalty off 5 to 6 decades, making sure that culprits would-be stored inside remand custody. The content on the penal code towards the individual trafficking was modified in the 1993, with an even more exact concept of the newest offense and better penalties getting traffickers (Outshoorn 2004a: 195). The latest posts was framed inside a great gender-natural means, and you will trafficking remained recognized as forcing one on 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 discourse about the divide between the rich and poor countries: female prostitutes from the ‘Third World’ Graz best escort 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.
Kinds of Sex Professionals
Further utilization of this new act resulted in the building regarding zero less than four categories of prostitutes. Firstly, you’ve got the ethnically vague Dutch sex personnel which voluntarily decides working inside prostitution that will be the fresh bearer regarding civil and you may social rights. Secondly, discover new prostitutes off their European union places who’ll circulate freely in-and-out of Netherlands and you may are employed in the fresh new sex business. These kinds divided in to a couple classes pursuing the accession into the Eu of the Baltic Claims, Poland, Hungary, brand new Czech Republic and you may Slovakia within the 2004, and work out a third group which could only lawfully become prostitutes whenever they was in fact separate sex pros and not employees. During the 2007, sex pros on the European union professionals was indeed approved towards an enthusiastic equivalent footing towards the elderly Eu representative specialists, although third classification try today full of sex experts from Bulgaria and you will Romania when both places entered brand new European union in this exact same year. Just like their predecessors, this type of women can be permitted to behave as separate sex pros, however, so far never as group.