Three men arrested for forcing Hungarian girl, 13, into prostitution

Three men have been remanded in custody for forcing a 13-year-old girl to work as a prostitute in Roermond in Limburg province.

The men, one Dutchman aged 48 and two men from Hungary aged 49 and 51, were arrested last Friday after police found the girl at a property in Roermond. They have been charged with human trafficking.

The men are thought to have taken the girl from an orphanage in Hungary and brought her to the Netherlands, the police statement said.

She was found following a tip-off.

Over 6,000 people in the Netherlands are the victims of human trafficking every year, two-thirds of whom are coerced into the sex trade, according to a report from the national reporter on trafficking in human beings and sexual violence in October.

The maximum penalty for human trafficking was increased to 12 years in 2012 but  the average sentence was 585 days. Just five suspects last year were jailed for more than 1,500 days and almost a quarter of suspects are eventually found not guilty, the NRC said earlier this year.