More and more people are doing illegal sex work in the Netherlands, and this is worrying the authorities. They're selling their services in houses, hotels, and massage places, which isn't allowed. This news comes from AD.
The Scientific Research and Documentation Center (WODC) says that in 2021, about 27,000 different ads for sex work were put online. But only a very few of these ads showed that the workers had permission to do this kind of work. The number of ads from before 2021 isn't known. However, the number of places where sex work is allowed has gone down by almost half between 2000 and 2014. This shows that things are changing, according to the newspaper.
This change makes it really hard for the authorities to keep an eye on things and stop illegal work. The sex workers are offering their services in lots of different places, and there are many ads that are the same, so it's nearly impossible to know exactly how many people are doing this without permission. This makes it more likely that they might be taken advantage of, says the National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking.
The city of The Hague has seen a big increase in illegal sex work for a few years, especially during the pandemic. During that time, the government made rules to stop the coronavirus from spreading, and this affected sex work a lot.
The government in The Hague plans to stop brothels where people can see inside. But some local politicians worry that this will just make more illegal sex work happen. Kim Vrolijk from the local party Haagse Stadspartij is one of them. She says, "Because the safe places are closing down, sex workers have to work illegally. I do this work myself, and it's unlikely that we'll stop if the brothels close. It means things are changing, and sex workers won't have as much help if there's a problem. Safe places have good connections to emergency services if something goes wrong."