Seven men have been arrested in connection with an investigation into the prostitution of a minor, Arnhem police said on Friday.

Two of them, aged 22 and 32 from Dordrecht and Apeldoorn, were arrested earlier and have been charged with forcing the minor into the sex trade. The five others were said to be clients.

The two main suspects have been remanded in custody but the five clients have been released pending further investigation.

The police have been increasingly focusing on prostitution involving the under 18s, whether or not they do the work voluntarily or were forced into it. The maximum sentence for having sex with a minor in such circumstances is four years.

Last December judges in Den Bosch sentenced 16 men and one woman who had sex with a 16-year-old girl to a symbolic one day in jail and between 120 and 180 hours of community service.

The clients all said they were not aware the girl, who was not apparently coerced into prostitution, was under age.

That case was the biggest of its kind in the Netherlands since 2015, when six men were convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old girl. Her pimp was jailed for two years but the clients were also jailed for a day.