The public prosecution department (OM) is to make counteracting trafficking in humans a top priority over the next four years, the Volkskrant reports today.

‘Trading and smuggling in humans is a modern form of slavery,’ according to top prosecutor Harm Brouwer. ‘We estimate that every year hundreds of foreign women are sold to work as prostitutes.’
The Netherlands introduced a system of licensing brothels six years ago in an effort to cut the influence of organised crime in the sex industry and improve working conditions for prostitutes. Nevertheless, Brouwer said, much still remained to be done. ‘I want to wake local councils up,’ the paper reported him as saying.
Brouwer was speaking yesterday at the publication of the OM’s new four-year plan. In addition to focusing on human trafficking, the organisation is to put more effort into tracking down and confiscating crime-related money. Computer crime and fraud will also get extra attention and new efforts will be made to tackle wide-scale marijuana growing. The OM is also to set up special ciitizen panels to advise on sentencing.