A 21-year-old man accused of prostituting a teenage girl at a hotel in Valkenburg should be jailed for three years, a court in Maastricht was told on Thursday.

‘Only a serious jail sentence will make the defendant realise how serious the facts are,’ the public prosecution department said during the hearing.

Armen A was earlier accused of forcing the girl to become a prostitute but that charge was dropped when the girl gave a statement saying she was in love with A and would do whatever he wanted, news agency ANP reports.

A is now charged with facilitating the prostitution, which prosecutors say is equivalent to sexual exploitation. He paid for the room, negotiated with clients and has previous convictions for robbery with violence and blackmail, ANP says.

The girl, who was 16 at the time, disappeared from her home in October last year and was found by police having sex with a man in a Valkenburg motel in December.

At least 29 men will also face charges, even if they believed the girl was at least 18 – the minimum age to work as a prostitute in the Netherlands – the department said in May. Two of the men have since committed suicide.