There is a tendency to put honour-based and domestic violence in the same box. This article examines whether this is correct or not. The perception of the two phenomena share a number of similarities: violence that often occurs in the context of the family and, in many cases, complex issues that have already been at play for some time. Furthermore, the perception is that primarily women are the victims of both domestic and honour-based violence. A big difference is that the term domestic violence refers to the social context where violence is taking place and the term honour-based refers to the motive for violent action or threats. A complicating factor is that hurt feelings of honour might provoke violence or threats in the context of the family. In research literature it is assumed that domestic violence occurs at all levels of society, which means that this phenomenon will also be encountered amongst ethnic minorities. It is striking that domestic violence amongst ethnic minorities is often mentioned in the same breath as honour-based violence. However, both phenomena deserve a different approach. The risks of treating domestic violence as an honour case and honour-based violence as domestic abuse are described.

Honour-related physical or psychological violence, performed in reaction to perceived (threats of) loss of (family) honour, draws a lot of political and public attention in the Netherlands. A comprehensive policy-program was developed to reduce and prevent honour-related violence. However, the project knows two important restraints. In the first place, no reliable prevalence figures of honour-related violence are available. Furthermore, the program has been implemented without articulating and testing the presumed working mechanisms. In this article suggestions are made for evaluation of the program using the educational project ‘Black Tulip’ as an illustration. Black Tulip is used in secondary schools and aims at adolescent potential victims and perpetrators of honour-related violence. The main purpose is to achieve attitude and behaviour changes by means of visualizing experiences with honour-related violence in drama and film, and subsequent group discussions. Evaluation of Black Tulip and other parts of the program should take place by a combination of traditional evaluation research (e.g. with pre- and post-measurements of attitudes and behaviour in ‘Black Tulip-schools’ and in schools that do not receive the intervention), and a theory-driven evaluation which articulates the presumptions about the working mechanisms of the program and puts these to a test using the scientific literature.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) changed from a private problem to a public concern over the last decades. It has become subject of various discourses in different domains. In the social sciences the gender-based discriminatory nature of IPV is contested by some researchers who claim a gender equality in IPV. They call for a gender-neutral approach to IPV as a family problem, de-contextualized from gender-based inequalities. In the Netherlands this degendering is reflected in current policy discourse. However, in the international legal human rights domain, IPV is unequivocally considered to be an issue that affects women disproportionately as a form of women's discrimination that is the result of unequal power relations. Both international binding human rights law and recent ruling of the ECHR impose binding duties to acknowledge this. This article addresses the paradox that is reflected in these two positions and how to get beyond it.

Many public prosecutors see a link between domestic violence and violence in the public sphere. In the beginning of this century the fight against domestic violence was integrated into the national security policy of The Netherlands. The growing attention for domestic violence combined with better registration has led to an enormous grow of criminal justice cases of domestic violence. The article analyses the public prosecution policy towards domestic violence. Nowadays even without a report suspects can be brought to trial if the charges can be proved. On the one hand the public prosecution aims to lay down a standard, on the other hand perpetrators are confronted with a set of conditions forcing them to accept professional help in order to bring about a change in their behaviour and prevent recidivism. In this way an effective use of criminal justice could contribute to a reduction of domestic violence and crime in general.

In this article the strategies and investigation results of the Social Intelligence and Investigation Service (SIOD) concerning labour exploitation are discussed. The results from reactive criminal investigation confirm current ideas in the literature about labour exploitation in relation to vulnerable (victim) groups. However, an increase in reports did not lead to more investigations. This is partly caused by bad or incomplete reports. Therefore the SIOD is in addition developing a new approach: the labour exploitation risk model. This method fits into the idea of Intelligence-Led Policing and tackles the problem that many exploitation cases are not reported to the police. In a risk model enterprises and employers with a (high) risk of violations are selected for control or investigation on the basis of particular characteristics generated from various information databases of various (government) agencies. The authors discuss the further development of the risk model and conclude with a look ahead.

Illegal activities like smuggling, prostitution and the production and sales of illicit drugs contribute to the national income of a country. In practice, however, they are not included in the statistics, because reliable estimates of the size of these activities hardly exist. Recently Statistics Netherlands started research into the share of illegal activities in the national income. This article presents the first estimates for the production and trade of illicit drugs. The total contribution of illicit drugs to the national income of the Netherlands ranges from € 1,300 million in 1995 to almost € 1,800 million in 1998 to 1,200 million in 2008. This is equal to approximately 0.45% of the national income in the 1990s to about 0.2% in 2008. The main reasons for this decrease are the decrease in the prices for drugs, the deterioration of terms of trade and the increase in international competition, especially for xtc and amphetamines.

‘Informal economy’ is a controversial concept defined in many different ways. This is reflected in the amount of synonyms, such as shadow economy, parallel economy, hidden economy, black economy etcetera. On the international level the concept of the informal sector was first used in 1972 by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in its report on a mission to Kenya. The popular view of informal sector activities was that they are primarily those of petty traders, street hawkers, shoeshine boys and other groups ‘underemployed’ on the streets of the big towns. The evidence presented in the report suggested that the bulk of employment in the informal sector, far from being only marginally productive, is economically efficient and profit-making, though small in scale. The informal sector is formed by the coping behaviour of individuals and families in economic environment where earning opportunities are scarce, or where regulation is too complex. The informal sector can also be a product of rational behaviour of entrepreneurs wishing to escape state regulations. There is a relation between welfare (GDP per capita) and relative size of the informal sector. Richer countries have relatively a smaller informal sector. However, government policies and attitudes are important as well. The relative size of the informal sector depends, among other factors, on the ‘regulatory capacity’ and ‘regulatory intent’ of governments. There is little known about the relation between informal and criminal activities. The informal economy seems to be a permanent feature of both high, middle and low income countries. Due to the actual economic crisis, people are pushed from the formal to informal economy. Rapid urbanisation is a factor as well. While the problem of size measuring is not insignificant, most observers agree that the informal economy is large and growing and will be an enduring feature of the economy of mega-cities.

This article describes the developments in jurisprudence on human trafficking in sectors other than the sex industry. In October 2009, the Supreme Court for the first time ruled in a case about human trafficking outside the sex industry. Whereas the number of cases before the Supreme Court ruling was limited, with only a few convictions for this type of exploitation, and with differences in the way courts interpreted the legal definition, this has changed tremendously after this ruling. The Supreme Court, in the case about exploitation in a Chinese restaurant, gave a very clear interpretation on the elements ‘intention of exploitation’ and the means ‘abuse of a vulnerable position’. Following the Supreme Court ruling, the number of cases has increased, as well as the number of convictions for this type of exploitation. Among these cases are also cases of criminal exploitation. It is not completely clear yet what type of behaviour falls within the scope of criminal exploitation.

A large number of former unaccompanied minors in the Netherlands leave for unknown destinations during the asylum procedure or after being rejected. In this contribution the authors provide answers to the question how undocumented (former) unaccompanied minors provide for their living and housing. The study is based on interviews with 118 former undocumented unaccompanied minors who were recruited through the personal networks of the researchers and through contacts with representatives of (private) organizations who support the youngsters. The undocumented minors are excluded from formal employment as well as provisions of the welfare state. By far the largest group of the undocumented (former) unaccompanied minors has never been involved in criminal activities and only one third of them work in the informal economy. The sectors in which these youngsters perform informal work vary from cleaning and construction to catering and personal services. The work is characterized by uncertain working hours. There are often few hours available and the work often takes place on call. The pay is meagre and few respondents can survive exclusively on their earnings. The undocumented (former) unaccompanied minors are mainly supported by friends and private organizations for their living and housing. It is because of this support that the youngsters do not roam the streets and can continue their illegal stay in the Netherlands. The strong orientation of the youngsters towards a lawful residence in the Netherlands causes them to fear the risks of arrest while working, so they rather settle for the limited support of private organizations and friends. The support of private organizations and the focus of the youngsters towards a lawful stay thus constitute a buffer against exploitation.

Soccer is the most important professional sport played in Europe. During the last two decades, both the flows of money and the institutional setting have changed dramatically. This paper provides an analysis of the Dutch professional league. How does that league compare to other European leagues? Especially as far as television revenue is concerned, the Dutch league lags the big leagues. This financial inequality has partially been caused by three important changes in the institutional environment: the introduction of the Champions League, the Bosman ruling and the liberalization of the players labour market, that accompanied that ruling. At the moment, an open European market for soccer talent exists, and a closed national product market for teams. Economies of scales exacerbates these problems, so in the near future, it is not to be expected that Dutch soccer teams will be able to compete successfully with their Spanish or British counterparts.