More victims of people trafficking recorded

Friday 06 February 2009

At least 809 victims of human trafficking were registered last year, up from 716 in 2007 Trouw reports on Friday.

Some 763 of the total were women and at least 60% of them were destined to work in the sex industry, the paper says.

Almost 40% of the total victims are Dutch girls who had been forced into prostitution by boyfriends and traded within the Netherlands, the paper said, quoting statistics from the human trafficking coordination centre.

The number of Hungarian victims rose from 12 in 2007 to 45 last year, the paper says. All were women and worked in the sex industry.

The increase in Chinese victims, 66 women and 12 men, may have been due to rumours about an amnesty for illegal asylum seekers which were circulating in the Chinese community last year.

However, the number of victims from Nigeria fell from 102 to 62, due in part to the break-up of a gang which used voodoo and other threats to force under-age girls to become prostitutes. The trial of those involved with this ring opens in Zwolle next month.

© DutchNews.nl

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