The Dutch police, immigration authorities and labour inspectorate are not doing enough to bring gangs of human traffickers to book, according to a report due to be presented to justice minister Ivo Opstelten on Tuesday.

The report, produced by the national human rights monitor Corinne Dettmeijer for the government, also says that the flow of money in human trafficking is seldom followed and that convicted traffickers are not stripped of their profits, the Volkskrant reports.

Dettmeijer investigated 77 cases being handled by the justice ministry in 2012. Most of these (60) concerned sexual exploitation. There were 249 victims, mainly women, and 165 suspects, mainly men.

Financial aspects

Although the police should always undertake an investigation into the financial aspects of a case, this only happened in 14 of the 77 investigations, the report says.

In 38% of the cases, one or two members of a gang were arrested while the rest went untouched. This is mainly because human trafficking cases rest mainly on the evidence of victims who are afraid to speak out.

‘In order to frustrate trafficking, all the links must be broken,’ Dettmeijer says in her report. ‘Arresting one or two people does not solve anything.’

In a written reaction, the justice ministry said that the number of cases being brought and the number of convictions are increasing, the Volkskrant reports.

There is a ‘perceptible trend’ towards stiffer sentences, the ministry said.