A Nigerian, Solomon Osaikhwuwuomwan, has been found guilty of smuggling 17 Nigerian women to Holland for prostitution.
According to RNW on Tuesday, Osaikhwuwuomwan was sentenced to seven years in prison, one year short of the maximum sentence in Holland for the offence.
Seven other members of his gang, including his wife, received shorter sentences for smuggling, human trafficking and for being members of a criminal organisation.
Arner ten Cate, the Dutch National Public Prosecutor for trafficking in human beings and people smuggling, said the development was a major victory, especially the fact that the Court of Appeal in Leeuwarden found Osaikhwuwuowan guilty of human trafficking and not smuggling.
According to him, trafficking, when victims are forced to work as prostitutes or forced labour, is a crime against human dignity.
In 2005 and 2006, around 140 young Nigerian women were presumably forced into prostitution in different European countries after disappearing mysteriously from refugee centres in Holland.
That led the Dutch authorities to launch a well-coordinated international investigation codenamed Koolvis.
In the course of the investigation, they realised that traditional practices such as voodoo or juju had been used to the benefit of the alleged traffickers.
The girls had been forced to take oaths to promise they would pay back the 50,000 euros that had been ‘invested’ in their travel expenses.
They also promised to keep silent about the identity of their ‘sponsors’.
To break the power of juju, Dutch police introduced the girls to a Nigerian priest living in Holland and to a woman who had been a victim of trafficking.
They apparently helped convince at least 10 of them to bring charges against those who had lured them into prostitution, and to their conviction today.
Cate said: “The pastor told them nothing would happen to them if they broke the oath and they could trust Dutch police completely. If we had said that they would not have believed us, but they believed him because of his moral authority. Without this, we would have ended up empty-handed.”