THE HAGUE--Dutch Minister of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations Ronald Plasterk on Friday shared his concerns about the number of illegal immigrants in St. Maarten and the general status of law and order on the island.
“We have serious concerns about law enforcement in St. Maarten. We often share our thoughts with St. Maarten on this issue and we have made additional funds available to strengthen the law enforcement sector,” Plasterk told the Dutch media on Friday morning before the weekly Council of Ministers meeting.
He responded to questions of reporters in relation to the St. Maarten Prosecutor’s Office’s presentation at Thursday’s meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Consultation of the Kingdom IPKO, which took place in St. Maarten this week. The Parliaments had requested an update on the status of human trafficking and serious crime on the island. Prosecutors Maarten Noordzij and Ton Maan provided the update.
Human trafficking, exploitation and prostitution are extensive in St. Maarten, according to the Prosecutor’s Office. The island is flooded with illegal immigrants, many of whom are from Haiti. Human smugglers bring them to St. Maarten, where they often are exploited by employers.
The sex industry, another source of concern, is also vulnerable to human trafficking. The Prosecutor’s Office estimated that there are about 200 sex workers on the island, but this number may be higher because there are no figures on street prostitution. Prostitution is not punishable by law in St. Maarten, and neither is the operating of sex clubs.
It was mentioned in the presentation to the IPKO that the Prosecutor’s Office has limited capacity to tackle human trafficking. These limitations also hampered investigations into money laundering by the casinos and the possible links with politicians.
The Dutch Government has made 20 million euros available to strengthen the law enforcement sector, including police, Coast Guard and Customs, and to deploy an additional 50 detectives. This financial injection, to which Plasterk referred as a “sizable investment,” should contribute to solving the issues and improve integrity in government. But, he added, “Much improvement also has to be made by the country itself.”
Member of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament Ronald van Raak of the Socialist Party (SP), currently in St. Maarten for the IPKO, referred to integrity and the upcoming criminal investigation of the links between the underworld and upper world in his regular column in The PostOnline website on Friday.
Van Raak said the meetings this week with fellow Parliamentarians of Aruba, Curaçao, and St. Maarten had “something unreal.” “This IPKO was an uneasy gathering. Participating were politicians from the Netherlands who have taken the initiative for a large-scale criminal investigation that possibly will affect a number of politicians on the other side of the table,” he said.
He further said that St. Maarten was a “rich country with lots of poverty.” The wealth, especially in the coastal areas, contradicts the poverty more inland, “where children grow up without prospects and youngsters fall into the hands of criminals.”
