NEW YORK, NY, February 27, 2025 – The Coalition Against Trafficking In Women (CATW), one of the oldest international organizations working to end the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls, has released a report, Failed Promises: The History of Legal Prostitution and Sex Trafficking in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

From the emergence of Amsterdam’s red-light districts in the 13th century to the enslavement of human beings and the sexual exploitation of Indigenous, African, and Asian women and girls in the Dutch Empire’s colonies, Failed Promises traces the socio-cultural and historical roots of the Dutch prostitution system.

The report focuses on the failures of the stated goals of the Prostitution Act of October 1, 2000, an amendment to the Dutch Penal Code, and the first law of its kind in Europe, which legalized prostitution and lifted the bans on brothels and pimping.

Twenty-four years later, the law’s three objectives to 1) support women in prostitution with health services and anti-violence strategies, 2) curb human trafficking, and 3) protect children from commercial sexual exploitation remain unrealized.

Despite its various regulations, the government struggles to calculate the number of individuals in its regulated sex trade (numbers range from 6,000 to 30,000), and fails to offer basic employment benefits to those who are “legally” registered. Furthermore, those in prostitution face abuse and degradation on a daily basis; studies – even from groups that advocate for the decriminalization of the sex trade – find that 90% of women in prostitution have experienced violence at the hands of sex buyers, pimps, or other exploiters.

The law has also failed to curb trafficking, with a reported – 5,000 to 8,000 victims each year, two thirds of which for purposes of sexual exploitation. In addition, the Netherlands has the deeply troubling distinction of hosting the highest volume of child sexual abuse material (formerly known as “child pornography.”) worldwide.

The report also explores why the Netherlands continues to have an outsized global influence, including within in the United Nations system, on the codification of prostitution as a form of labor and empowerment for women, as its economy enjoys significant revenues from sex tourism and the associated drug trade.

“The Dutch government is fiercely resistant to recognizing the violence, stigma, discrimination, and even torture, all of which is inherent to the system of prostitution,” says CATW’s Executive Director, Taina Bien-Aimé. “We hope this report will encourage governments, institutions, and the public to examine more closely how patriarchal structures underpin this harmful cultural practice and act with urgency to end this profitable human rights violation.”

Failed Promises is not an indictment of the Dutch people or Dutch culture. It is cautionary tale of the how the sex trade flourishes when the State sanctions it, at the incalculable expense of women and girls in particular. Like most countries, the Netherlands believes prostitution is inevitable; this report shows that prostitution was invented and therefore can be undone.

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