By Edwin van der Aa and Hanneke van Houwelingen (Translated from Dutch)
‘I’m Jessy…Slim, double D and nice buttocks. Do you want to let go completely and let your imagination run smoothly? Yes, then you should have me. I am available every day. “ In the ad Jessy shows her open white blouse and bare, tight belly. Men react quickly. He: ‘I am a bit older, 42 years old. Very? Just say differently. ”
Jessy: “I’m actually a bit younger. Do you mind that? ”
He: ‘Did you laugh? I do like crooks. How young are you? “
Jessy: ‘I’m a rascal of 17 …’
Jessy is actually an employee of Watch Netherlands: a joint venture between the Center against Child Trafficking and Human Trafficking, aid organization Fier and Terre des Hommes. From an observation and action unit with blinded windows somewhere in the Randstad, a dozen researchers and IT specialists search for evidence of sexual child exploitation by loverboys. This happens after a report by parents, a taxi driver and sometimes the victims themselves.
Gideon van Aartsen set up Watch Nederland on behalf of aid organization Terre des Hommes. ,, We investigate, among other things, how many victims a loverboy makes, where the children are offered for sale and where the girls are kept hidden. Sometimes private detectives are enabled to observe on location. If a case is well-founded enough, we transfer the file to the authorities. "Last year it involved more than 70 files.
Who are the exploiters and their customers, who ensure that young girls are abused every day? And how do they work? A tour of this newspaper along the police, aid workers and experts in the field of loverboys exposes a shocking world full of extortion, drugs and forced sex. The young perpetrators are looking for two things: earning money fast and power. And for that they do not have to carry a girl for months with gifts to make her fall in love.
Chantabel
We want to get rid of the term loverboy. They are human traffickers
"By using social media as an extortioner, boys can continue to work”, says Floor ’t Sas. She is a GZ psychologist at Spirit Jeugdhulp in Amsterdam. Currently around 40 girls, mostly victims of a loverboy, are accompanied and treated. ,, The girl has sex with such a loverboy or friend much faster than before. A film or picture is taken of that and immediately the girl is blackmailed. Many girls are attracted to the ‘exciting life’. Things can experience: parties, drinks, drugs. Your social network is different, there is money being scattered. “
It is no longer the boys in the past who were assailing girls, specialists in human trafficking Marijke van Overveld and Esmee Huijps of the police confirm. "It’s not even necessary to love and to love. Once they have a compromising video of you, that is enough for blackmail. Especially for young girls, whose parents do not know anything, "says Huijps. ,, We want to get rid of the term loverboy. They are human traffickers. ”
It is estimated that almost 1400 minors have become victims. Van Overveld: “The temptation was first a process of months, now from a week to a fortnight. This is how we meet, then again and then it goes wrong. Then a taxing film is made or it is said: ‘Jester, I have money problems’. ”
Recruited
If the girl is recruited – according to Van Aartsen, that is the case after oral sex in the bicycle shed where images have been made (‘Pipes are no longer seen as sex by some children’) – prostitution follows. Sometimes that same evening. ,, About 50 euros for half an hour is the standard price that loverboys count. These traffickers are mostly Moroccans, Turks, Antilleans and Roma. The lion’s share has a migration background. It is rarely a ‘Henk or Ingrid’. This is lucrative trade: they sometimes earn up to 800 euros a day on a girl. “
According to Carolien van den Honert, policy officer at the expertise center Humanitas ESSM, the loverboys of today have one thing in common. "They are real criminals who act in people. In many cases they are part of a larger network that also engages in weapons or drug trafficking. ”“ That is also what Sas van Spirit sees. "These guys are often driven by a harder, criminal shell,” the psychologist says. ,, There are seasoned criminals around the corner, often with an online network for customer recruitment. “
Watch Nederland is actively trying to destroy such online trade of loverboys by deterring customers, via lure ads. As soon as a potential customer snaps, he receives an e-mail: ‘Watch Netherlands knows you now, make sure we never meet you again’.
Liquidations
A minor girl is told: "Make sure you deliver three friends, then you have to fuck five men less in a day.
But the pimps just go on. Researcher Van Aartsen speaks of combined crime they are guilty of. "It goes from liquidations through drugs to prostitution of minors. Today’s trafficker no longer drives around in a fat car, but in an unobtrusive Volkswagen Polo. They are getting smarter and smarter. It’s still a cat-and-mouse game with the police. ” In the meantime, a young girl sometimes sits for a long time in a situation where she is under severe pressure, often vulnerable young women from a lower social class and with an unstable home situation, but not always, Eva (see box) fell into the hands of a loverboy at the age of 15 and 19 and describes her family as an average family. “Father, mother, brother, dog and me – an adolescent with an outboard bracket. ”
Van Aartsen outlines how far the abuse of power can go. ,, A minor girl gets to hear: ‘Make sure you deliver three friends, then you have to fuck five men less in a day.’ “ He also knows an example where a loverboy put his dice in his hands. ,, The number of dots she threw was the number of customers she had to finish that day. ”
Signals
According to recent figures, only 1 out of 10 underage victims are now being helped. In the coming year, the police will train all officers in the street to recognize signals from parents – or the girls themselves – earlier. Watch Nederland now regularly reports reports of concerned family members or teachers, of things that the district police do not know or have left behind.
Meanwhile, the Watch team also spruced 2.2 million sex ads. The ads are now widespread in the online world, see the police specialists. “Now customers are also being recruited into chat groups on Telegram, Facebook, Badoo and Tinder. Women, or their pimp, continue to respond to advertisements from men seeking companionship at Speurders or Marktplaats. ”
Van den Honert recognizes this broadening. ,, The internet offers many possibilities, so it can be difficult to get a grip on it. Unfortunately, if you look at the supply of child victims of human trafficking. “
The Watch employee, who pretends to be the minor Jessy, continues the chat conversation with the grown-up man. ,, I have already said that I am 17 but he just goes on ”, she says.
He: ‘When can you?’
Jessy: “Tomorrow I can, and do you?”
For a moment the man doubts.
He: “You are a minor.”
(Silence)
He: ‘Can you today?’
It’s like Rotherham all over again and there is no doubt that large trafficking rings like those are interconnected.