Impact case study database

Global impact through UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Walk Free Foundation (WFF) to achieve Sustainable Development Goal Target 16.2

The eradication of human trafficking has been adopted as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Specifically, SDG target 16.2 asserts to ‘end abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of violence and torture against children’ [ 5.1]. In 2013, van der Heijden was invited to contribute as a consultant for the Expert Group Meeting on Trafficking in Persons Research by the UNODC in Vienna. The UNODC has collected international statistics on detected victims of human trafficking since 2003. Historically, there has been no sound estimate of the number of undetected victims of trafficking in persons worldwide, mainly owing to methodological differences and the challenges associated with estimating the sizes of hidden populations, including human trafficking victims, in countries where the hidden population is small, such as The Netherlands.

The number of victims of human trafficking has been selected as an indicator to measure progress towards the implementation of this target and as Mr. Herman Bolhaar the Dutch Rapporteur says obtaining accurate estimates “contributes greatly to the fight against human trafficking, for it enables the development of evidence-based policies” [ 5.2]. As a direct result of van der Heijden’s recommendations on the robustness of the MSE methodology when using multiple years and covariates, the UNODC concluded that MSE should be officially adopted as a means to estimate the extent of human trafficking because it produces “a more realistic estimate of the size of any country’s human trafficking problem,” and a “clearer projection of the scale of the issue within that country” [ 5.3]. In 2016, UNODC and WFF signed an official agreement to work together to use MSE ”to develop estimates of human trafficking in four European countries [The Netherlands, Ireland, Serbia and Romania]…to provide much needed data on human trafficking at the national level and…build relevant knowledge about how to measure this serious crime” [ 5.4], [ 5.5]. In 2018, the UNODC and WFF jointly published a report on the extent of human trafficking in Ireland [ 5.6] using MSE to calculate the estimated number of victims. As a direct result of the research, van der Heijden worked on MSE for Ireland, Serbia and Romania (three reports were published by UNODC as research briefs in 2018 [ 5.6]). In 2019, the UNODC commissioned van der Heijden to write a Handbook [ 5.7] on how to apply MSE to estimate the extent of human slavery that can be used globally. “We are confident that Professor van der Heijden’s approach represents a sound methodology by which to estimate the extent of human trafficking within a country and we have tasked him to lead a team to write the statistical part of a Manual which explains how this methodology can be used by countries to estimate the size of human trafficking within its borders.” [ 5.8].

Policy impact in The Netherlands

In 2016 and 2017, van der Heijden worked on estimates for the Netherlands for the period 2010-2015 [ 5.6], published in 2017 as research brief by UNODC and Dutch National Rapporteur on Human Slavery and Child Abuse [ 5.9]. The publishing of further reports by UNODC [ 5.3, 5.6] and the Dutch National Rapporteur [ 5.10] constitute evidence that human trafficking has been placed higher on the political agenda.

The new estimates based on MSE were published in a report by the Dutch National Rapporteur [ 5.6, 5.9]. These show that only 1400 out of 6250 (around 1 in 5) victims of human trafficking are observed each year in the Netherlands [ 5.11]. As a response, on 13 November 2018, one year later, five ministers from the government jointly sent a letter to Dutch parliament titled ”Together against human trafficking: An integrated programme-approach to sexual, labour and criminal exploitation”, which specifically refers to the estimated numbers of victims [ 5.12] to accompany the 44-page programme [ 5.13].

The Dutch government reports annually on the progress on the implementation of the programme: “In addition to the resources previously made available to the Public Prosecution Service and the police… the Coalition agreement (that is the 4-year programme the political parties that participate in the government agreed upon) provides for a considerable intensification of the approach to human trafficking. The Coalition agreement makes extra resources available for the reception of victims of trafficking in human beings (EUR2,000,000 (11-2018)), and within the EUR50,000,000 (11-2018) for the Inspectorate for Social Affairs and Employment, the approach to labour exploitation will be implemented. One part of the EUR291,000,000 (11-2018) for the police will also be used for, among other things, extra police liaisons for trafficking in human beings”. [ 5.12]

Publication of the estimates and subsequent debates and discussion that followed helped the Dutch government to take special actions addressing victims most at risk of trafficking. For example, “a special focus on the prevention aimed at young people in the Netherlands” and an “Action Line with a special focus on the detection of victims of labour exploitation”. Both are examples of evidence-based policies made possible by the MSE results [ 5.2]. In September 2019, the government enacted legislation providing, inter alia, for an authorisation requirement for all forms of sexual services, and by criminalising facilitating the pursuit of profit from illegal prostitution, the so-called pimp ban [ 5.14]. At the same time, the moral legislation is being modernised based on results from van der Heijden’s and Böhning’s analysis, as described in the updated report on victims of human trafficking (an update of [ 5.9], without updates of estimates). As stated by the Dutch National Rapporteur [ 5.2], “Knowing the number of unobserved victims is tremendously useful for us, as the size of the total population of victims reveals the extent of the problem that we face in the Netherlands. But more importantly … it enables us to develop more evidence-based policies, because it also provides insight into the different detection-rates of the different forms of human trafficking.” This is also evident from the recently published Victim Monitor Trafficking in Human Beings 2013-2017 by the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children [ 5.9].