Also at medical aid organization Dokters van de Wereld, they see people walking in every day who works under terrible conditions, says director Jasper Kuipers. “They literally get sick. It is the au pairs, the people in the rinsing kitchen in restaurants, the cleaners in the hotels; you see them everywhere.”
Kuipers explains that undocumented people are part of our economy, and therefore susceptible to exploitation, because they do the work that many others do not want to do. “We made that ourselves.”
Take signals more seriously
According to the Salvation Army, organizations must take the signals of people who are being exploited much more seriously. “We see that people end up with us, because they were not heard by the police, for example. Or that a neighborhood team heard it, but did not really take action.”
Willis did not dare to go to the police, and with him no more daring, he says. “We’re scared. It was said to me that if I went to the police, I would be arrested.” He was eventually helped at Recht in sight. “Then I was able to laugh a little for the first time. They gave me hope.”
Ball in politics
According to Kuipers from Dokters van de Wereld, the ball lies with politics to find a structural solution for this. “But in the Lower House it is now about ‘punishable illegality’ in the new asylum law. Putting these people in prison does not solve the problem. We have to have a conversation about where these people play a role in society and how we ensure that they can work in a humane way.”