Belgium - Facts on Trafficking and Prostitution

Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation

Belgium

Trafficking

In 1993, 40 per cent of the trafficked women assisted in Belgium by an NGO were from Central and Eastern European Countries, most from Poland and Hungary. (STV and Payoke, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," IOM, May 1995)

In most of the 100 known cases of trafficking, the victims said they knew of at least 2 or 3 other women whose cases were not known. There are 28,000 prostitutes in Belgium, about half come from abroad, mainly Western Europe. There are 2,000 foreign prostitutes in Belgium from developing coutries and the Central and Eastern European Countries. (Belgium police estimates, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," IOM, May 1995)

Policy and Law

Although trafficking in women to the Netherlands and Belgium has risen, police and immigrant authorities do not consider it a large problem. ("Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," IOM, May 1995)

The maximum penalty for alien smuggling in Belgium is one year. The penalty for forcing someone into prostitution is up to ten years. This crime is difficult to prove, and few victims are able or willing to testify. (Tass, 1995, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," IOM, May 1995)

Prostitution

There are 28,000 prostitutes in Belgium, about half come from abroad, mainly Western Europe. There are 2,000 foreign prostitutes in Belgium from developing coutries and the Central and Eastern European Countries. (Belgium police estimates, "Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," IOM, May 1995)

Rue d'Aarschot, in Brussels' red light district has hundreds of women from Eastern Europe, Albania, Thailand and Zaire. (Roland-Pierre Paringaux, "Prostitution Takes a Turn for the West," Le Monde, 24 May 1998)

Official Response and Action

Leaflets warning against sex tourism were handed out in airports in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands in July 1998, officials at the World Tourism Fair taking place in France said. ("Campaign against sex tourism launched at Paris travel trade fair," Agence France Presse, 26 March 1998)

Belgium passed a new extra-territorial sexual abuse law in 1995 that makes it possible to prosecute the alleged offender even without a complaint from the destination country. ("Child sexploitation within the law's reach," The Nation, 2 Jul 1997)

Pornography

Case

Albanian boys were used in the making of pornography films by a Belgium child pornography network on the island of Corfu. The videos were sold internationally. ("Child porn video," KNegovani@AOL.COM, 7 February 1998)

Public Response

20,000 people marched through Bruessels on 14 February 1998, to express anger at Belgium’s lack of policy reform in the wake of a child molestation case. In April 1997 the Parliment found the deaths of four girls, held and abused by Marc Dutroux, on police blunders and inaction. 250,000 Belgians marched in Brussels on 20 October 1996 in acts of grief and anger over the deaths of the girls and in demand for a better government. (Robert Wielaard, "20,000 Rally Against Belgian Gov’t," Associated Press, 15 February 1998)

Organized and Institutionalized Sexual Exploitation and Violence

A Nigerian women seeking asylum in Belgium for gender-related violence died while gendarmes (police) escorted her during her deportation. The 20-year-old woman was trying to escape a forced marriage to a polygamous 65-year-old man with a history of abusing his other wives. The gendarmes used an approved technique to subdue the woman who had been shouting. The men pressed a small pillow to her mouth. The woman suffered a meningeal hemorrhage and brain death. Her deportation was filmed since she had resisted four earlier attempts to deport her. Her request for asylum was denied as her claims were considered "unfounded." Hundreds of people protested the treatment of the women at a hospital and at the home of the Belgian Interior Minister Louis Tobback, calling for his resignation. (Bert Lauwers, "Anger in Belgium after young Nigerian woman dies," Reuters, 23 September 1998)

Interior Minister Louis Tobback took responsibility for the Nigerian woman’s death following the storming of the Senate building by anti-government protestors. Tobback said the woman’s deportation was justified and her case had not met the requirements for political asylum as set forth in the Geneva Convention and under humanitarian grounds. He also stated that only highly qualified gendarmes had been chosen to escort her. The woman, handcuffed and in leg irons, was subdued after she began screaming as other passengers boarded the aircraft. (Leslie Adler, "Belgian minister takes blame in death of refugee," Reuters, 23 September 1998)

Interior Minister Louis Tobback offered his resignation over the death of the Nigerian woman. He admitted that the woman died because of mistakes made by police during her deportation. His resignation came after international outrage, including protests in Paris and a letter of concern signed by 100 worldwide legislators. One of the police officers being investigated in the death previously faced an investigation in similar case. The woman arrived in Belgium in March, 1998; she was then held in a detention center for refugees. ("Belgian minister offers resignation over refugee," Reuters, 24 September 1998)

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Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation
Donna M. Hughes, Laura Joy Sporcic, Nadine Z. Mendelsohn and Vanessa Chirgwin