The problem of Trafficking
Trafficking showed up towards political agenda after tension away from feminists and you will the latest national women’s coverage company. To begin with, feminine had been trafficked from The southern area of China (somewhat Thailand additionally the Philippines), Latin America (Columbia and also the Dominican Republic and you may Africa (Ghana); adopting the slip of your own Berlin Wall surface, trading routes managed to move on in order to Central and you will East Europe. Governmental demands was determining the fresh offense a lot more broadly to helps prosecution and improving the punishment from 5 to 6 ages, so culprits could well be kept inside remand custody. The brand new blogs regarding the penal password into the peoples trafficking was basically modified within the 1993, having a far more perfect definition of this new offense and better charges getting traffickers (Outshoorn 2004a: 195). The latest blogs was presented inside a great gender-natural method, and you may trafficking stayed identified as pushing men 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’ 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 fbb escort Uster 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 Specialists
Then utilization of the brand new operate triggered the development off zero below five categories of prostitutes. To begin with, you’ve got the ethnically undefined Dutch sex staff member just who voluntarily determines to be hired for the prostitution that is the newest bearer away from civil and you may social liberties. Next, you’ll find the brand new prostitutes from other Eu regions who will circulate easily in and out of the Netherlands and you can work in the latest sex business. This category divided in to a couple of kinds following accession toward Eu of your own Baltic Claims, Poland, Hungary, the brand new Czech Republic and you may Slovakia inside the 2004, making a third group exactly who can just only legally work as prostitutes once they was independent sex gurus rather than group. In the 2007, sex gurus about the European union participants have been approved into the a keen equal footing toward more mature European union representative workers, however the 3rd class try now filled up with sex gurus from Bulgaria and you may Romania whenever each other nations inserted the brand new European union in this exact same 12 months. Just like their predecessors, these types of ladies are permitted to behave as independent sex gurus, but yet far less staff.