SINT MAARTEN/BONAIRE - Collaboration within the border protection and immigration chain in the Caribbean Netherlands has improved since 2017, partly due to the appointment of the chain coordinator in 2021.
This is concluded by the Council for Law Enforcement (the Council) in a recent report examining the implementation of recommendations from the reports "Foreign Nationals Policy" (2017) and "Tackling Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling" (2019) in recent years. The report indicates that, although collaboration has improved, the approach to human trafficking and migrant smuggling still falls short in some areas: only one of the eight recommendations from 2019 has been followed.
New Recommendations
The Council now makes eight new recommendations to the Dutch Minister of Justice and Security (JenV). These include the critically necessary improvement of the theme register and the improvement of steering by JenV and the Caribbean Netherlands Police Force (KPCN). The Council has requested the Minister of JenV to prepare a report six months after the publication of the inspection report on the concrete status of the (progress in the) implementation of the new recommendations.
Theme Register for Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling
In a theme register for human trafficking and migrant smuggling, signals from chain partners can be brought together and analyzed. The goal is to generate visibility on the nature and extent of human trafficking and migrant smuggling on Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. The KPCN is responsible for managing the register, but as in 2019, it still does not function well.
Regarding the KPCN, the Council identifies two bottlenecks. Firstly, registration discipline continues to be a persistent major concern. Secondly, there is still a lack of internal awareness within the police, resulting in signals of human trafficking and migrant smuggling not being recognized and therefore not registered. (Potential) victims of these serious crimes are therefore insufficiently identified. The Council considers this a risk.
The evaluations promised by the minister regarding the results of theme processing have not been conducted by the KPCN with the relevant chain partners. Steering on this by both the police leadership and the Ministry of JenV is lacking.
Lack of Steering
The Council concludes that there is also a lack of necessary steering by the Ministry of JenV and the KPCN on the implementation of recommendations stemming from previous reports. It is important that the Ministry of JenV and the executing organizations henceforth more explicitly steer towards concrete results. Deficient steering appears to be a recurring and persistent bottleneck in the Council's investigations.
Equipment of Royal Marechaussee (KMar) in the Caribbean Netherlands a bottleneck
The Royal Marechaussee (KMar) indicates to have insufficient capacity to carry out its legal tasks in the field of border control and immigration control on Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. Financial resources to realize the expansion supported by the KMar in the Caribbean Netherlands have been lacking to date.
However, the Council notes that the capacity of the KMar in Curaçao, Aruba, and Sint Maarten has been expanded. In the Council's opinion, the claim for expansion of the KMar in Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba should also be assigned with priority by the Minister of JenV.
The Council's inspection report is public and available on the Council's website: www.raadrechtshandhaving.com
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