Some highlights of our work

The Centre against Child and Human Trafficking (CKM) puts the problem of human trafficking on the agenda in the Netherlands.

We do groundbreaking research and implement innovative projects on sexual and criminal exploitation. We listen to what is needed, we research promising strategies and collaborate with care, law enforcement and other partners to put new insights into practice. All with this one aim: ending human trafficking.

Making human trafficking visible is our motto. In the Netherlands, as in many other countries, the majority of victims of trafficking remain unseen for a long time before someone identifies them, or before they come forward themselves.

In order to shed light on trafficking victims, we publish annual reports on the help line statistics on human trafficking of the Chat with Fier online help line. Since its inception, the help line has proven to be a place where victims of sexual exploitation feel comfortable to disclose what has happened to them for the first time. Often, these victims are minors or young adults who have not yet talked to the police or other anti-trafficking actors. This means that they are not included in the national statistics on human trafficking in The Netherlands.

As such, the help line data provide a valuable addition to the formal statistics on human trafficking in The Netherlands and into the nature and scale of their exploitation. Read our latest Chat with Fier report:

• Help line Netherlands: More than half of young trafficking victims exploited for more than a year (help line data 2022)

Driven by the question ‘Who don’t we see?’, we conduct research into hard-to-reach and overlooked victims of human trafficking. For example, we have published a study on boys and men as victims of sexual exploitation. Currently, we are conducting research on exploitation of minors and young adults from the Netherlands in neighbouring Belgium and Germany.

Technology and online platforms play an important role. Much of the recruitment and exploitation of victims takes place online. We have warned that sexual exploitation can take place within the webcam sex industry, and we have shown that vulnerable young persons with eating disorders are being preyed on by ‘coaches’ pretending that they can help them lose weight. At the moment, our efforts include research on victims who are sexually exploited by their parent(s).

We test out new ways of finding victims and bring promising practices into the Dutch context. Our aim is to make more victims visible, and to reach them at the earliest possibility to make the exploitation stop. For example, through proactive outreach to victims online, which is now being carried out by our partner Spine.

Often, a victim’s statement is crucial for the succesful prosecution of traffickers. However, victims are not always able or willing to engage with the police and the public prosecution service. In our report ‘You just don’t report’ (2018), we identified barriers to victims’ willingness to report human trafficking to the police. Among other things, victims deal with trauma, they fear their trafficker(s), they may have a low level of trust in law enforcement actors, or do not believe that cooperating is to their own benefit.

In order to make the process less burdensome for victims, our Centre has been cooperating with care organizations, the Dutch police, the Dutch Prosecution Service and the judiciary to address these issues. Central to our approach is a trauma-informed way of working, in which the victim’s sense of safety and security is given prominence and their trauma is taken into account throughout the stages of the criminal justice process. The initial phase of the project (2021-2022) gained promising results. In the second phase, the project was rolled out in more regions. Results of this project are expected in 2025.

Read more:

• Pilot project Victims’ willingness to report human trafficking, phase 2 (2023-2024), in Dutch.
• Interview with project leader Emma Simons on victim’s willingness to report.
• News item on phase 1 (2021 – 2022) of the pilot project ‘Towards a higher willingness to report after sexual exploitation’.
• Report ‘You just don’t report’, 2018 (Aangifte doe je niet, in Dutch).

In cases of criminal exploitation, reporting the crime seems even more challenging. Building on the lessons learnt from the pilot project and our expertise on criminal exploitation, we are currently conducting research into barriers victims of criminal exploitation face which it comes to reporting exploitation and engaging with the police.

Our groundbreaking reports on criminal exploitation (‘Changing Perspectives‘, 2022 and ‘Beyond the crime, 2021) were the first pieces of research to shed light on the nature and scale of criminal exploitation in The Netherlands. The reports showed that many children and young people seem to be falling victim to this type of human trafficking. Often these are children who were born and raised in the Netherlands. Their exploitation is often linked to drug-related crime.

Victims are still more likely to be prosecuted as perpetrators than to be protected as victims of exploitation. Often, they fail to be identified and recognized as victims. Within the criminal justice chain, we are pushing for the non-punishment principle to be implemented in such a way that it offers victims protection.

Victims often do not see themselves as victims of exploitation either. As exiting crime can be very difficult, we have launched Turning Point together with our colleagues of Fier. Turning Point is a help line for young people involved in crime and at-risk of becoming involved in crime. Additionally, we have been working to raise awareness about criminal exploitation among care, school, law enforcement and other frontline professionals who work with young persons.

In cases of criminal exploitation, reporting the crime seems even more challenging. Building on the lessons learnt from the pilot project and our expertise on criminal exploitation, we are currently conducting studies on barriers victims of criminal exploitation face which it comes to reporting exploitation and engaging with the police and into their needs in terms of safety and care.

Read more:

• Report ‘Changing perspectives’:
  • Part I: An exploratory study into criminal exploitation in the Netherlands (2022).
  • Part II: The criminal justice approach to criminal exploitation in the Netherlands (2022). Report in Dutch.
• Report ‘Beyond the crime’ (2021). In Dutch.
• ‘Dutch Minister’s vision on non-punishment does not fit reality’ (2022). In English.

Without demand, there would be no child sexual exploitation. Each year, hundreds of children in our country fall victim to sexual exploitation. They are forced to engage in sexual acts with others in exchange for payment. At CKM, we believe that those who pay for sex should not be regarded as ‘innocent bystanders’ but as abusers. As one of the root causes of sexual exploitation, along with the exploiters. Yet, in practice, people who pay to have sex with child victims of exploitation often seem to be considered people who happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It is our mission to change this through advocacy and research. We analyze court cases and information shared by victims and survivors of exploitation on the people they were forced to have sex with. We have published reports and a podcast series on the topic.

Our research has shown, among other things, that people who paid to have sex with a victim of sexual exploitation in many cases must or could have known that this person was a victim. It has also shown that child victims are advertised on regular adult advertisement websites, which should be free from sexual exploitation.

Read more:

• Studies on demand for sexual exploitation of minors:
  • Persons who pay to have sex with minors. Part 1: analysis of court cases (2023) – report in Dutch.
  • Persons who pay to have sex with minors. Part 2: policy and strategy (forthcoming 2024) – more info in Dutch.
• Opinion piece: ‘Without clients, there would be no sexual exploitation of minors’ (2023). In Dutch.