Dutch girls groomed for sex on social networking sites

LONDON - Thousands of young girls in the Netherlands are being groomed for sex on social networking websites and forced into prostitution by pimps, a charity has claimed.

Anita De Witt of the charity Stoploverboys claims the young girls are showered with promises of love before being threatened with violence and bullied into a life of sexual slavery, Sky News reported.

“The problem is really big and it is not only young girls. The youngest victim is nine years and the oldest 51,” she said.

Many girls have so far been rescued by the charity.

A 14-year-old girl named Samantha fell into the trap when she was 11. The pimp who picked her up made sure her parents were not aware of what was happening. He then forced her to have sex with his friends and took pictures. He then blackmailed her into going with paying clients.

“Sometimes it was an old man. Sometimes it was a man in his 30s,” Samantha said. “Some men, they hit me, other men say you are like a little girl.”

Samantha finally got out with the help of the charity.

Stoploverboys claims over 5,000 girls are still trapped in the business.

Kimberley, 18, who was forced into working as a prostitute, says if she ran away her pimp had vowed to attack her family. “It’s slavery. Of course there are girls who volunteer to do the work but most of the girls are forced to be a prostitute.”