The hunt for an elusive crime – an analysis of Swedish measures to combat sex trafficking

ABSTRACT

Sex trafficking has been described as an enormous, serious and growing problem that must be combatted, but also as a moral panic based on a very small number of cases. This article explores the measures that have been proposed to combat sex trafficking by politicians, the national police and the National Council for Crime Prevention in Sweden between 2007 and 2017. The analysis shows that sex trafficking is partly used by the actors to justify their own work. The measures that all three actors describe as central are crime victim support, co-operation, information, education and expanded legislation. The underlying problems associated with sex trafficking, according to the three actors, appear to be prostitution, drug use and foreign women crossing Swedish borders. Much of the responsibility for the provision of information and education is delegated from government agencies to a wide range of actors. This desire for comprehensive societal engagement stands in stark contrast to the small number of sex trafficking cases in Sweden. The measures to combat sex trafficking are thus largely characterized by the hunt for an elusive crime.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex trafficking
• Sweden
• media
• politics
• crime prevention
• organized crime

Introduction

During the 2000s, sex trafficking has become established as one of the most serious (crime) problems in the Western world, and has been given a prominent position on both national and international agendas (Doezema, 2010; Erez, Ibarra, & McDonald, 2004). Sex trafficking generally refers to the unlawful recruitment and transportation of human beings with the intention of exploiting them sexually, by means of threat or coercion (UN Treaty Collection, 2000/2015). It is portrayed by government agencies, the media, organizations, activists and certain academics as the slavery of our time, and as an enormous, growing problem that must be combatted. The struggle to identify victims of sex trafficking is viewed as a recurrent problem for the agencies and NGOs that work to combat the phenomenon. The lack of crime victims is assumed to be due to the fact that it is sensitive, difficult and even dangerous for the victims to report the offence. Other more critical researchers argue that the sex trafficking debate should instead be viewed as an example of a moral panic, which exaggerates both the magnitude and severity of the problem (Doezema, 2000, 2010; Farrell & Fahy, 2009; O’Brien, Hayes, & Carpenter, 2013; Sanghera, 2005; Segrave, Milivojevic, & Pickering, 2009, 2017; Vijeyarasa, 2015; Weitzer, 2007, 2014; Zhang, 2009).

A large number of measures have been proposed and implemented to combat sex trafficking. Internationally, a total of 167 countries have undertaken to work to combat sex trafficking through their ratification of the United Nations Palermo protocol to prevent, supress and punish trafficking, i.e. the so called Palermo Protocol (UN Treaty Collection, 2000/2015)¹. Responses to trafficking have consequences, not only for the legislation of different countries but also for criminal justice and social welfare agencies, and in the end also for both crime victims and perpetrators. The proposed measures also communicate a view of what the nature of the sex trafficking problem is assumed to consist in according to the actors making the proposals.

The majority of research on sex trafficking, and responses to sex trafficking, has been conducted in the Anglo-Saxon countries. In the Nordic countries, researchers have primarily focused on analysing anti-prostitution measures. This has been a special focus in connection with the introduction of the ‘Swedish model’, which criminalizes the purchase, but not the sale, of sex. The argument for this particular form of legislation is that it is justified as a means of not only tackling prostitution but also of combatting sex trafficking (Levy & Jakobsson, 2013; Skilbrei & Holmström, 2013). In Sweden, the English term trafficking, or sometimes human trafficking, is employed almost exclusively as a synonym for sex trafficking, since it is this particular type of trafficking that has dominated the public debate. In the Swedish public debate, the level of awareness about other types of human trafficking, besides sex trafficking (for example, the trafficking of cheap labour within the service sector, domestic service or manufacturing), is rather low (Heber, forthcoming).

Only a small number of sex trafficking cases in Sweden come to the attention of government agencies. As in other countries, the lack of reliable data constitutes a problem, and there is very little solid research on the extent of sex trafficking, or on the conditions that characterize sex trafficking (see e.g. Segrave et al., 2017; Weitzer, 2007, 2014). In an analysis of peer-reviewed journal articles on sex trafficking, Zhang (2009, p. 184) notes that ‘surprisingly little empirical data could be found to support the claimed scale of the problem’. During the period 2007–2016, the number of reported cases of sex trafficking in Sweden increased substantially, from a total of 15 per year in 2007, to a peak of 81 in 2016. However, during these same years, the annual number of convictions for human trafficking (including sex trafficking) has only ranged between 0 and 9, despite the legislation having been expanded several times during this period (Brå, 2018) (Table 1). The National Crime Prevention Council discusses the dark figure of sex trafficking cases, and refers to reports by the national Police. The Council argues that the dark figure cannot be excessively large, since sex trafficking is based on a sex trade that has to ensure that buyers are aware of its presence. That is, since the buyers need to know where they can meet women to buy sex, the sale of sex needs to be more or less visible. Based on a closer scrutiny of police-reported cases over the course of a three year period, the Council concludes that there cannot be more than a handful of severe cases per year (Brå, 2011; pp. 8–9). Empirical studies on sex trafficking in Sweden also show that it is unusual for sex trafficking to be conducted within the framework of organized crime or large networks. The most common situation instead involves only two people, a so-called procurer and an identified victim (Brå, 2008a, 2008b, 2011).

Table 1. Numbers of cases of sex trafficking reported to the police, and numbers of conviction decisions with sex trafficking as the principal offence in parentheses.

Year	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
Cases	15 (2)	15 (0)	31 (4)	32 (6)	35 (2)	21 (9)	40 (2)	31 (0)	58 (2)	81 (6)

Source: Brå, 2018

The public, political and media interest in sex trafficking has also led to a focus on the sale of sex, and its relationship with sex trafficking. Activists assert that prostitution needs to be abolished for sex trafficking to be prevented; if the sale of sex is legal, this will inevitably lead to sex trafficking (O’Brien et al., 2013). Sex work has thus been reframed as a sex trafficking problem, not the least with the aid of the UN Palermo Protocol (Svanström, 2017). The current article draws on an earlier study by Heber (forthcoming), which analysed how the work of certain actors led to sex trafficking being given a prominent position on the political and media agendas in Sweden during the 2000s. Defining sex trafficking as a social problem presented an opportunity for a large number of influential actors working in politics, the media and at government agencies and NGOs to re-emphasize threatening and racialized discourses about sex slaves, immigration and organized crime.

This study examines the measures that have been proposed to combat sex trafficking by politicians, the national police, and the National Council for Crime Prevention in Sweden during the last decade. The article will describe the proposed measures, and also analyse in more detail why they have been advocated and what these measures tell about the underlying view of the sex trafficking problem. The analysis will describe both the explicit and implicit motives of the actors concerned. It will also critically discuss how the measures may affect (potential) crime victims as well as certain other actors at whom they are directed.

Research on measures to combat sex trafficking

Previous Nordic research on measures to combat sex trafficking has mainly focused on criminal justice responses towards sex trafficking, and on searching for, and rescuing, victims. The Nordic anti-sex trafficking regulations are characterized by strong links between criminal justice policy and social welfare policy. Recently however, there has been a shift away from social policy towards criminal policy (Jahnsen & Skilbrei, 2018; Levy & Jakobsson, 2013; Skilbrei & Holmström, 2013).

Despite sex trafficking being a relatively small phenomenon in Sweden, several new laws have been introduced to combat it. In 2002, the first law against sex trafficking in Sweden came into force, with sex trafficking being prohibited via the penal code, in line with the so-called Palermo protocol. The sentence for sex trafficking was specified at between two and ten years’ imprisonment (Proposition 2001/02). Two years later, the law was extended to include all types of human trafficking, and it was no longer obligatory for the act to be transnational for it to be labelled human trafficking. Also, it was possible to issue a temporary visa to certain witnesses in sex trafficking cases (Proposition 2003/04). These laws were promoted by an abolitionist, radical feminist movement that has been dominant in Nordic, and particularly Swedish, politics for more than two decades. The aim for abolitionist feminists is the abolition of all types of sexual violence against women, and hence the abolition of prostitution and sex trafficking. They do this by fighting prostitution via laws that target sex buyers and others that benefit economically from prostitution, rather than targeting the prostitute (Doezema, 2010, pp. 18–19). However, the Swedish regulatory responses stem not only from feminist politics, but are also grounded in international obligations, e.g. the UN Palermo Protocol.

Criminal justice responses dominate policy responses to sex trafficking, and are justified as being a proper response to social problems. However, anti-sex trafficking regulations generally offer little help to crime victims even though they are promoted as providing protection for these victims (Chapkis, 2015; Musto, 2016; Vijeyarasa, 2015). On the basis of interviews with sex trafficking victims, and state and non-state anti-sex trafficking actors, Musto (2016) shows that the victims are often treated as victim-offenders, who are punished and subjected to extensive surveillance. According to Chapkis (2015), there is a thin line between protecting and (unintentionally) harming the victims of sex trafficking. Chapkis describes the US Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 as a ‘soft glove covering a still punishing fist’ (ibid, p. 51).

In the Nordic countries, and particularly in Sweden, all types of sex work are considered to constitute prostitution, and all migrant sex workers tend to be described as victims of sex trafficking (Levy & Jakobsson, 2013). There is thus a discursive slippage between sex work and sex trafficking, and also between sex trafficking and procuring (Chuang, 2010; Skilbrei & Holmström, 2013, p. 114). It is therefore easy for women who sell sex to be labelled as victims. This expectation of victimization among the women involved in sex work contributes to a political desire to rescue them. Thus, the so called ‘rescue myth’ is a powerful element in anti-sex trafficking responses (Haynes, 2014; O’Brien et al., 2013; O’Connell Davidson, 2006). Searching for and rescuing victims is central to anti-sex trafficking practices regardless of whether or not the victims themselves want to be rescued. Being rescued may have positive outcomes for the victims, but also negative outcomes such as experiencing lockdown in a rescue centre, involuntary participation in a criminal justice process or repatriation (Segrave et al., 2009). Furthermore, the rescue discourse builds on a sense of superiority in the rescuer who ‘knows best’ (Augustin, 2005).

The law-and-order narrative comprises domestic legal approaches focusing on victim rescue and the prosecution of offenders, as well as a border regime approach that centres on who is let into the country and who is allowed to stay (Munro, 2006; Musto, 2016; Segrave, 2009; Vijeyarasa, 2015). In Sweden, anti-sex trafficking responses are used to control and deport both women who sell sex and women who have been trafficked for sexual purposes (Levy & Jakobsson, 2013). These types of regulatory responses have been described as involving both moral components and negative consequences (Scoular & O’Neill, 2007; Skilbrei & Holmström, 2013; Svanström, 2017).

Problematizing sex trafficking measures

As stated in the introduction, critical researchers argue that the extent and seriousness of sex-trafficking is portrayed as constituting a much greater problem than is actually the case, and that anti-trafficking measures are thus disproportionate in relation to the problem. This means that the moral panic concept can be applied to the sex trafficking debate (e.g. Vijeyarasa, 2015; Weitzer, 2007). Cohen (1972) describes how moral panics are characterized by a condition in which a certain issue (or a group of individuals) is described as presenting a threat to the moral order and interests of society. The media, politicians, police and other experts together formulate certain issues as constituting problems, and also solutions to these problems.

Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994, pp. 33–41) have listed several factors that characterize moral panics: there is a widespread concern about the problem, there is hostility towards a group that is identified as responsible, and a consensus that the threat posed is serious. Finally, the panic is disproportionate to the objective danger posed. This final criterion means that researchers who employ the moral panic concept have to make an objective assessment of the extent of the problem (Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994, pp. 102–103). The possibility of researchers being able to make a correct assessment of the basis of a moral panic has been questioned, however (e.g. Garland, 2008, p. 21–22). I will return to the moral panic concept in the concluding discussion, in which the proposed measures will be related to the estimates of the extent of sex trafficking. The measures themselves are analysed on the basis of policy analysis, however.

The policy analysis employed in this study is influenced by the work of Bacchi (2009, 2012, 2015). Her approach to governmental policies and practices is that they all include representations of problems. By analysing policies, we learn about how problems are represented and also how these problems have been produced. The suggested solutions can be traced back to see how the problems themselves were produced (Bacchi, 2009). Identifying whom solutions are directed at can thus help us understand broader societal concerns (Skilbrei & Holmström, 2013). One of the study’s points of departure is in Foucault’s (1986, pp. 11–12) understanding of problematization as the result of governmental practices. The concept of problematization represents the basis of Bacchi’s policy analysis since she views policy proposals as ‘prescriptive texts’ that rely on specific problem representations (Bacchi, 2012). Moreover, and informed by the governmentality tradition (O’Malley, 1992, 2006; Rose, 1999, 2000; see also Garland, 2001), the article draws on the notion of responsibilization, which will be utilized as an analytical tool in this study. Responsibilization refers to the neoliberal strategy whereby governments increasingly ascribe the responsibility for risk management to citizens, and also to (potential) victims. This will be further developed in the analysis.

Methodology

The study examines governmental and political documents, reports from the Swedish National Police, and reports from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, all of which were published between 2007 and 2017. These constitute the three most central, influential actors with regard to sex trafficking measures. The three actors regularly produce documents that describe sex trafficking in Sweden and suggest proposals for responses to sex trafficking. The time frame was chosen to provide a retrospective picture of the sex trafficking measures that have been discussed during the past decade (see also Appendix 1).

One crucial political document is the 2008 governmental Action Plan to Combat Prostitution and Sex Trafficking, which is formulated in 36 points. Besides this action plan, the political material is comprised of two governmental inquiry reports about sex trafficking (SOU 2016:70, 511 pages; SOU 2008:41, 430 pages). A governmental inquiry report takes the form of a proposal for new legislation that has been submitted to the government by an inquiry appointed for the purpose. ²

The analysis also includes all annual situation reports on human trafficking for sexual purposes published by the Swedish National Police between 2007 and 2017. These situation reports are written by the intelligence unit at the National Criminal Investigation Department and are primarily based on intelligence submitted by police contacts at the police authorities of the Swedish counties. The reports also draw on information obtained from police and customs collaborations between the Nordic countries, from the public and from the Swedish Migration Agency (Situation report 7, p. 29). The situation reports include recommendations to combat sex trafficking, primarily in the form of policing measures, but also measures relating to other actors.

Finally, the analysis includes research reports published by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet, or Brå, in Swedish). The Council is an agency for research and development, which works under the Ministry for Justice. The council produces research reports, evaluations, handbooks and fact sheets. It is also responsible for Sweden’s official crime statistics, and supports local crime prevention initiatives (Brå, 2017). The Council’s research reports typically include policy recommendations. All four of the reports published by the Council on sex trafficking between 2007 and 2017 were included in the analysis, together with one handbook and a fact sheet.

The material was read through several times and the proposed measures were coded in a qualitative, analytical program on the basis of a number of themes that emerged during the reading of the material. These themes were analysed more in detail, and sometimes re-coded. A decision was made to not analyse the three actors’ explicit descriptions of sex trafficking (nor do all reports/documents contain this kind of description), but instead to focus the analysis on the discussions of measures to combat sex trafficking and the associated problematizations, directing special attention at similarities and differences between the governmental policy documents, and those produced by the Police and the Council respectively. The thematic analysis was combined with one specific element of Bacchi’s (2009) approach to policy analysis, namely the question: ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’

Results

In the following, I will begin by showing what differentiates the various sex trafficking measures proposed by the three actors (police, politicians and the National Council for Crime Prevention). Then, I will describe the similarities that characterize the proposed measures.

Sex trafficking as a means of legitimizing activities

Unsurprisingly, the police argue that one important means of combating sex trafficking is to give the police more resources, and to ensure that more cases of sex trafficking are reported to and investigated more effectively by the police. These factors are either not emphasized at all by the other two actors, or are at least not emphasized as strongly. The reports published by the police stress that it is important for the Police Authority to be given ‘earmarked funding’ and funding for developmental work at the local level work in order to be able to prioritize their sex trafficking activities (Situation report 9; 12). The proposals from the police also underline that it is important that suspected cases of sex trafficking are reported to the police. Here, the police argue that it is not only sex trafficking that needs to be reported, but also the purchase of sexual services, since this will by extension enable them to detect sex trafficking (Situation report 17).

The measures proposed by the police point to the importance of developing a flow of cases of sex trafficking (and of the purchase of sexual services) through the organization in the form of reports and investigations, which would be made possible by the police being given additional resources. Sex trafficking is thus used to legitimize additional resources for the police. The underlying problem is thus organizational: the police need to justify their work. Flyghed (2007, p. 65) has described how the police as an actor strive to obtain more resources in order to expand the organization and ‘legitimise the organisation’s continued existence’. Thus, in this particular instance, if there are too few cases of sex trafficking, this constitutes a problem for the police as an organization. Being able to answer the question ‘where are all the victims?’ (Farrell, McDevitt, & Fahy, 2010, p. 201) becomes central to the police.

The publications from the National Crime Prevention Council call for more research, information and co-operation. This too may be viewed as a manifestation of the agency’s need to legitimize its activities, since the Council’s work involves producing and communicating research. The Council’s explicit objective, i.e. its external rationale (Flyghed, 2007), is that of extending the knowledge on sex trafficking, which the Council describes as follows:

More knowledge is needed about victims and key aspects of human trafficking, especially aspects of control and how those aspects have developed in recent years. Greater understanding of the victims as well as the means traffickers use to maintain control of the victims would be useful to various professional actors, especially within the justice system. One recommendation is therefore to initiate further research. (Brå, 2008a, p. 182)

This may be interpreted as indicating a desire on the part of the National Council for Crime Prevention to highlight the existence of a knowledge gap, at the same time as it is made clear that their research is of relevance to other actors. In the governmental documents, the greatest focus is instead directed at legislation, particularly in the governmental inquiries that have been analysed, which is not surprising, since these inquiries were specifically focused on proposing legislation. These legislative proposals will be described in more detail below, in the section entitled ‘A demand for harsher sentences and expanded legislation’.In summary, the differences may be interpreted as manifesting a desire to justify the three studied actors’ own work by demonstrating that sex trafficking legitimizes their activities. The measures that all three actors describe as being central to combating sex trafficking are: (1) supporting crime victims, (2) co-operation, (3) education and information and (4) harsher sentences and expanded legislation. These measures will be described below.

Supporting (or deporting) crime victims

All three of the actors examined propose measures focused on crime victims that are not exclusively directed at the victims of sex trafficking but rather also largely at ‘women with experience of prostitution’ (Action Plan 2008, p. 14). According to the governmental Action Plan Against Sex Trafficking, it is important that measures reach active and former prostitutes, both youths and adults, as well as the families of those who sell sex. One of the proposals in the action plan is therefore that a government agency with responsibility for compulsory care provision for youths and adults should be given the following task:

SiS [‘Statens Institutionsstyrelse’ or The Swedish National Board of Institutional Care] is given the task of developing special programmes focused on working with those individuals in their institutions that have been, or are, at risk of becoming caught up in prostitution. This will involve identifying these individuals and thereafter improving the measures focused on them, both adults and youths. SiS will also, in consultation with the social services, develop a means of working that reduces the risk for relapse into prostitution once these individuals have left SiS institutions. (Action Plan 2008, p. 15)

This proposal is thus focused both on measures directed at active sex workers, but also at a risk-assessment process targeting potential sex workers. Similarly, the Council, which subsequently evaluated the governmental action plan, also argues that it is important both to combat sex trade while at the same time providing support to those who sell sex (Brå, 2011, p. 18).

Another form of support that the governmental action plan states is required is support to municipalities and county councils to develop substance abuse care provision ‘so that they can better meet the needs of women with experience of prostitution’ (Action Plan 2008, p. 14). According to the action plan, by working to combat substance abuse, it is also possible to work to combat the sale of sex, and it is assumed that this will in turn reduce sex trafficking. The groups that constitute the focus for sex trafficking measures directed at crime victims are thus sex workers and drug abusers. They are assumed to be at high risk of ‘becoming stuck in their “victim role”’ and of continuing to sell sex as a result (Action Plan 2008, p. 13). Thus, there is not merely a slippage between sex trafficking and sex work, which has been noted in previous research (e.g. Chuang, 2010), but sex trafficking is also linked to addiction.

Other measures for sex trafficking victims are related to the criminal justice process, where one problem seems to be that the crime victims do not participate to a sufficient extent in the justice process, which makes it difficult to obtain convictions for sex trafficking:

Our assessment is that measures are required to give increased support and protection to victims [emphasis in original] of people trafficking. Not least, it is important to introduce measures to produce measures that instil confidence in order to support the participation of crime victims in the justice process and in becoming re-established in society. A safe and secure residential placement, for example, may influence the victim’s sense of safety and participation in future criminal justice proceedings. If vulnerable people are given adequate support, they become more secure witnesses, which increases the likelihood of convictions. (SOU 2016, p. 194)

Research in the field of critical criminology has directed powerful criticism at the way in which government agencies exploit sex trafficking victims in the justice process as witnesses, before finally subjecting them to deportation (e.g. Segrave et al., 2009, 2017). In the Swedish proposals examined in the current study, there is an implicit assumption that those sex trafficking victims who are from foreign countries should not be reintegrated into society in Sweden, but rather in their ‘country of origin’ (Fact sheet, 2017, p. 2). ‘Reintegration in the country of origin’, which is mentioned by the National Council for Crime Prevention (Fact sheet, 2017, p. 2), is also referred to in the governmental action plan (2008) and in reports on sex trafficking published by the police:

via the Action Plan against Prostitution and People Trafficking for Sexual Purposes, the government has given Stockholm County Council the task of coordinating and developing measures to ensure that individuals who are subject to prostitution and people trafficking will be able to return to their countries of origin more safely. The objective of making this return process more effective is that of creating the conditions to enable the victims to leave prostitution, to minimise the risks that they will once again get caught up in the sex trade upon their return home, and to reduce their human suffering and increase their sense of safety and security. (Situation report 11, p. 16)

As Segrave (2009) has shown, the sex trafficking narrative does not end with the criminal justice process, but with the foreign victim being sent ‘home’. In summary, it can be seen that the proposals for solutions to sex trafficking that are focused on crime victims constitute a view of the underlying problem as being that of prostitution and substance abuse, at least when the victims are Swedes. When the victims are instead women from foreign countries, they should also be given help, in order to be able to function as useful witnesses at trial, but primarily to enable their subsequent reintegration ‘at home’, i.e. their deportation. The fundamental problem when it comes to these women seems to be that they were not stopped at the Swedish border, a view of the problem that is also found in connection with the next theme.

Co-operation as penal welfarism and crimmigration

Co-operation is a buzzword in all the studied documents. This suggested cooperation should mainly take place between governmental authorities within Sweden, but also between states across geographical borders. The police are often located at the centre of this co-operation, and there is a view that they particularly need to co-operate with social services agencies (Brå, 2008b; Situation report 17, Action Plan 2008). Thus, the documents place importance on criminal justice policies being woven together with social welfare policies in a form of penal welfarism (Garland, 1985). However, the documents underline that many more types of co-operation are needed, e.g. between the Swedish Migration Agency, the Swedish Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority, the Swedish Prosecution Authority, the courts, the county councils and the Swedish Institute. The most important explicit reasons for this co-operation are knowledge exchange (Situation report 17) and information exchange (Situation report 9):

The exchange of information between the police authorities and external partners should be developed by means of automating and digitalising routines to the greatest extent possible in order to enable them to be administered, processed, analysed and passed on to others more effectively. This is necessary to enable the National Criminal Investigation Department to obtain a national overview of the situation and for the representatives of the National Criminal Investigation Department to support and coordinate local activities in the best way. This places demands on improved and standardised processing and IT-solutions. (Situation report 9, p. 22)

The underlying problem appears to be that the police do not feel that they are getting access to sufficient information. They want to expand their ability to collect information by means of co-operation with other agencies. International co-operation is also viewed as important, particularly collaborations with agencies and organizations in the ‘countries of origins’, in order to help people involved in sex work and sex trafficking (Action Plan, 2008, p. 15). One of the reports from the National Council for Crime Prevention (2008a) describes international co-operation as a means of preventing the recruitment and re-recruitment of sex trafficking victims, and also as a means of strengthening the Swedish border. The forms of co-operation that are proposed in this context do not only involve agencies such as the police and border guards, but also private actors such as ferry companies, travel agencies, airlines, women’s shelters and victim advocacy groups. The Council writes the following about the border control work against sex trafficking:

Work at the borders must be improved. For instance, border control personnel should be trained to be more receptive to signals of trafficking. This is even more important where there is no border control. Police and border guards should initiate strategies for preventing presumptive victims from entering the country, and when they do enter, improve follow-up of suspected cases. One way might be to improve and structure interagency cooperation, e.g. between border guards and police, to avoid missing important details in the follow-up of suspected cases. (Brå, 2008a, p.179)

Scholars have argued that the police, together with other actors, have become more closely involved in immigration practices, at the same time as immigration authorities have become more police-like. This merging of criminal and immigration law is typically referred to as crimmigration (Franko Aas & Bosworth, 2013; Pickering & Weber, 2013; Stumpf, 2006). The stated need for co-operation between the police and other actors at the border is also reflected in the Swedish proposals for measures against sex trafficking. These proposals are based on a view that foreign sex trafficking victims, as well as sex workers, are entering Sweden without being stopped at the border.

Our collective responsibility: Education and information to combat sex trafficking

When it comes to information and education as solutions to sex trafficking, the two measures often overlap. Also, it is not always clear who has the knowledge that will form the basis of the information and education, nor do the documents outline what this knowledge consists in. However, the recipients of these measures are described more clearly; according to the documents analysed, there is a need for education and information among the majority of the members of Swedish society.

According to the Action Plan to Combat Prostitution and Sex Trafficking (2008), agencies such as the police, the Prosecution Authority, the courts and the National Migration Agency need to improve their knowledge on sex trafficking by means of education. It is not only the politicians that propose these measures. Both the police and other justice system actors raise the need to learn more about the ‘mechanisms’ behind sex trafficking, as well as how sex trafficking may be detected and investigated (Situation report 13 and 17). The police also argue that they should have an interactive educational programme and information page on ‘prevention measures and combating prostitution and sex trafficking’ on the police intranet (Situation report 12, p. 20).

The suggested educational measures focused on sex trafficking are primarily communicated to and within governmental agencies, whereas information on sex trafficking seems to be directed towards a large part of Swedish society. Agencies, municipalities, civil society and the public are all to be made more informed. In a report on ‘Sexual human trafficking’, the National Council for Crime Prevention argues that a range of actors in the local community need to be provided with information in order to be able to help prevent crime:

Human trafficking³ is dependent on these legal actors, who are often unaware that they play roles that are important for organised crime. They include ferry companies, bus companies, travel agencies, restaurants, estate agents, housing agencies and landlords. By giving these groups knowledge about how they become involved in procuring and human trafficking, and how they are utilised without being aware of it, they may become more cautious and observant. This will prevent crime. Brå (2008b, p. 84)

The police want to provide information on sex trafficking by ensuring that their reports reach agencies, voluntary organizations and the public, as well as people within the police organization itself (Situation report 12). There are clear parallels here to the nationwide crime prevention programme, Our collective responsibility [Allas vårt ansvar] that was introduced in Sweden in 1996 and that has been described as a social movement against crime. The co-ordinating role of the state created technologies of governance and organizations that were intended to generate local initiatives in the state’s quest to combat crime, while municipalities, voluntary organizations and businesses were also to be included in the work. Our collective responsibility has been interpreted as constituting a clear example of neoliberal state governance of those who should be working to prevent crime, and not as a means of controlling crime itself (Hörnqvist, 2001; see also Garland, 2001). Information and education measures against sex trafficking may thus be interpreted as an exercise of power the objective of which is to govern and regulate the actions of both civil servants and citizens in the desired direction (see Foucualt, 1991; Hörnqvist, 2001; O’Malley, 2006; Rose, 1999). In the field of sex trafficking, responsibilization manifests itself in the form of extensive educational and informational measures with clearly specified recipients and sources, but with unclear contents.

The governance of state agencies in the case of sex trafficking is in line with Western crime policy trends over recent decades, which has moved towards a dissemination of the responsibility for crime from the state to the citizens. The state delegates this responsibility in the form of a top-down movement by means of responsibilization (Garland, 2001; O’Malley, 1992). These ‘techniques of the self’ (Foucault, 1984/1990) transform citizens into self-sufficient entrepreneurs (Rose, 2000, p. 160). One example of this can be found in the way the National Council for Crime Prevention describes what can be done to combat sex trafficking at the local level, and presents an example from a Swedish small town:

We asked ourselves what a municipality can do at the local level. Well, we can increase the knowledge on these issues, raise awareness and inform the citizens,’ says Ann-Sofie Lagercrantz. ‘We decided to focus on human trafficking for sexual purposes and to use informational measures to influence demand. We wanted to raise people’s awareness. If you buy sex – what are you contributing to?’ (Brå 2010, p. 160).

Scoular and O’Neill (2007) have described how measures to combat prostitution in the United Kingdom have increasingly come to be conducted by means of multi-agency, regulatory responses, but with the responsibility for the situation ultimately being placed on the sex worker. However, the responsibility for sex trafficking in Sweden is not placed on the sex trafficking victims. This would be impossible since the victims are constructed as passive and helpless sex slaves (see Heber, forthcoming), and can thus not be blamed or viewed as self-governing. Instead, other actors are encouraged to assume this responsibility on the victims’ behalf, but also on the behalf of potential victims. Thus, the information or knowledge on sex trafficking is disseminated out to those who might come into contact with sex trafficking. Nor are the measures focused exclusively on sex trafficking, but rather on prostitution and sexual exploitation as well. This is particularly true when schools are responsibilized:

The government intends to give the National Board for Youth Affairs, in consultation with the Swedish Media Council and the National Agency for School Improvement, the task of formulating a teaching package on the sexual exploitation of children and youths with a focus on the Internet and other interactive media. The teaching materials should be formulated so that they can be used both by schools and other activities that involve children and youths.’ (Action Plan 2008, p. 18)

Schools and youth clubs should thus work with children and youths who are at risk of becoming the victims of sexual exploitation, but also sex trafficking (see also Brå 2010). Schools in Sweden are generally seen as an important ‘competent’ local crime prevention actors with responsibility for moral education and situational crime prevention (Wahlgren, 2014). The proposed measures to combat sex trafficking that are focused on information and education thus delegate the responsibility for risk calculation and the management of risky individuals (see Rose, 2000) to local actors that come into contact with potential sex trafficking victims. The state thus engages in both self-regulation (the police should educate the police), and in relocating the responsibility for sex trafficking.

A demand for harsher sentences and expanded legislation

The final category of responses is related to legislative measures. These primarily take one of two forms: proposals to introduce harsher sentences, and measures to expand the definition of sex trafficking so that it covers a wider range of acts. Unsurprisingly, these proposals are primarily found in the political reports that contain proposals for new legislation. References to the legislation are also found in the governmental action plan and the police’s situation reports.

The governmental inquiry report from 2008 primarily focuses on two issues. The first one is an introduction of permanent residence permits for sex trafficking victims. The other suggestion is the introduction of ‘double criminality’; i.e. if a person has been convicted of sex trafficking in another country, it should nonetheless be possible to convict the same individual again in Sweden. Double criminality was also subsequently introduced and came into force in 2010. With regard to the question of permanent residence permits for crime victims, however, the judgement of the committee of inquiry was that temporary residence permits were sufficient. The report also discussed the issue of control, and proposed that the control requirement associated with the offence should be redefined:

As examples of controlling measures, we could mention the offender keeping the victim confined, taking away the victim’s passport or identity documents or other belongings that mean that the victim is unable to move freely. It should not be required that the offender control the victim in all respects however. It should also be possible to view the offender as controlling the victim in cases where the victim is able to move about relatively freely, if an overall assessment shows that the victim has not been able to make decisions about his or her situation. (SOU 2008, p. 106)

The legislation that was then enacted as a result of the inquiry redefined the control requirement for crime victims under the age of 18 (the age of majority in Sweden) but not for victims over the age of 18. Another proposal presented in the same inquiry report is that the victim’s consent ‘should not be ascribed any significance’ when assessing whether or not the sex trafficking offence has been committed (SOU 2008, p.120). In this sense, the criminal justice discourse is based on the same view of the victim as that found in the search and rescue narrative: passive women who lack agency (see Segrave et al., 2009).

The inquiry report also proposes that certain types of complicity in sex trafficking should be assessed to incur criminal liability for the offence. The same report further proposes that certain business transactions should be criminalized since some cases of sex trafficking are initiated by means of some form of payment. The second governmental inquiry report on sex trafficking, which was published eight years later, also focuses on the issue of how the definition of sex trafficking might be expanded. This report discusses a number of issues relating to whether the legislation could be employed more often than had originally been intended, and to ‘further improve the criminal law protection’ (SOU 2016 p. 14). Criminal liability for sex trafficking requires that the trafficking has been conducted by means of unlawful coercion, deceit and exploitation. In this regard, the inquiry states that the law should be changed in order to clarify that the presence of one of these elements is sufficient and that there is no requirement with regard to the nature of the power relations between the offender and the victim. Nor should there any longer be a requirement that the exploitation of the victim should be intentional on the part of the offender.

According to the inquiry, all of these changes are intended to ensure that more reported offences would result in prosecution and conviction. In addition, it is argued that the proposed legislation may also have a normative and preventive effect:

General prevention is one important objective of penal legislation of this kind. As a result of the normative and deterrent effect that criminalisation in general may be assumed to have, our proposals may be expected to function preventively and to influence people to refrain from engaging in undesirable acts. Our proposals, and in particular the criminalisation of the exploitation of another’s distressed situation and the economic exploitation of another, may be expected to affect people’s behaviour in situations of this kind. The proposals also send a clear signal to other actors in society to continue to prioritise measures intended to prevent and combat this type of crime. (SOU 2016, pp. 392–393)

In summary, these legislative proposals focus on expanding the definition of sex trafficking, with control of the victim, and victim consent, being redefined, and with the offender being made culpable for more types of acts or in more situations. The underlying problem once again appears to be that an insufficient number of cases of sex trafficking are reaching the criminal justice system and that too few offenders are being convicted of sex trafficking. This analysis has further shown that the legal definition of the phenomenon is moving closer to the legal definition of procuring.

There has been a cross-party consensus among Swedish politicians during the twenty-first century that offenders should face increasingly severe sanctions (von Hofer & Tham, 2013), which is also visible across the rest of the Western world (Garland, 2001). The political response to crime takes the form of regulatory laws that fail to acknowledge the underlying problem, and that instead signal to the public that ‘something is being done’ (Garland, 2001, p. 135). As regards the expanded sex trafficking legislation analysed here, it clearly constitutes both a normative response to a social problem and a symbolic approach to the prevention of sex trafficking. Skilbrei and Holmström (2013) have argued that the sale of sex is increasingly being regulated in the Nordic countries by means of criminal justice policies. As regards sex trafficking, this study suggests that this ‘juridification’ primarily manifests itself in the form of an expansion of the legislation on sex trafficking, which is intended to increase awareness about and improve prevention of this offence.

Concluding discussion

This study has examined the measures that have been proposed to combat sex trafficking by politicians, the national police and the National Council for Crime Prevention in Sweden. The article has described the proposed measures, and has also presented a more in-depth analysis of why they have been advocated and what these measures tell about the underlying view of the sex trafficking problem.

One limitation of this study is that it has not only analysed measures that have actually been implemented but has rather included all the measures that were suggested by the three actors over the course of the period examined – and while most of these measures were implemented, others were not. The choice of this approach was based on the idea that the proposals themselves provide a better reflection of the actors’ opinions. The current analysis would also have benefitted from a discussion of how the suggested measures fit in with the societal and political changes that are currently occurring in Sweden and Europe. Also, an inclusion of the three actors’ explicit portrayals of sex trafficking would have strengthened the analysis. These portrayals have, however, been presented in a separate article (Heber, forthcoming).

By studying the suggested measures, the analysis has described both the explicit and implicit motives of the actors concerned. It has also critically discussed how the measures may affect crime victims, as well as other actors, and also large parts of the Swedish society. This study has been able to show that links to sex trafficking are partly used as a means of justifying the actors’ own activities. With regard to measures focused on the crime victims, there is some slippage towards a focus on combating prostitution and drug use. This group of measures also focuses on preventing sex trafficking victims from being transported across, or themselves crossing, the border into Sweden. Thus, according to the proposed measures, crime victims should be supported or deported, depending on their nationality. The need to improve border protections is also an element that is found in some of the measures focused on co-operation. There is thus a continuation of the ‘search and rescue’ narrative, in the form of measures to ‘rescue and restore’ (see also Bernstein, 2007). Here, we can see that an expressed desire to help crime victims may not always be of benefit to the crime victims themselves. Instead of a crime victim approach, with a deeper understanding of crime victims’ situations and needs, a crimmigration approach, based on a merging of criminal and immigration law, is favoured.

However, the responses are not only focused on crime victims or ‘order at the border’ (Segrave, 2009). Instead, many of the Swedish measures focus on providing education and information on sex trafficking. This may appear reasonable, given that the level of knowledge on these offences is relatively low in the Nordic countries, while at the same time it is unclear who might possess this knowledge. The proposals are clearer about ‘our collective responsibility’, i.e. that all members of society can and should involve themselves in helping to prevent sex trafficking. Here, the responsibility is delegated from government agencies to a very wide range of actors. As has been the case in previous national governmental agency campaigns to combat crime (see Hörnqvist, 2001), all citizens are viewed as having the competence to work with crime prevention and risk assessment.

This desire for a comprehensive societal engagement in combating sex trafficking stands in stark contrast to the small number of sex trafficking cases that are reported and that lead to convictions in Sweden. Swedish crime statistics show that only a small number of cases of suspected sex trafficking are reported to the police, and that only a handful or so have led to convictions for sex trafficking (Brå, 2018). Very few cases that might be categorized as serious sex trafficking come to the attention of the authorities (Brå, 2011). At the same time, a very large segment of both the criminal justice system and civil society is to be engaged in the battle against sex trafficking. Expanding the legislation, in combination with an increasing slippage between the concepts of sex trafficking, procuring and prostitution, produces opportunities to ‘discover’ more victims and convict more offenders. There is also a widespread concern about the problem, and a consensus that the threat posed is extensive and serious (see Goode & Ben-Yehuda, 1994). On this basis, sex trafficking may be categorized as a moral panic.

It could of course be argued that every crime victim who is saved from a situation of serious exploitation is worth the moral panic and the substantial efforts. Studies conducted outside the Nordic countries have identified serious cases of victimization in the field of sex trafficking, with severe consequences for the victims (e.g. Hossain, Zimmerman, Abas, Light, & Watts, 2010). A crime victim perspective, whereby those who are most victimized should be rescued, often constitutes the basis of anti-sex trafficking measures (see Chapkis, 2015; Musto, 2016). With regard to the proposed Swedish measures, however, the crime victim perspective results in a focus on prostitutes and drug abusers, or on the deportation of foreign sex victims or sex workers. Similarly, the ‘definitional collapse of sex trafficking and sex work’ (Musto, 2016, p. 9) is also reflected in the Swedish measures.

However, distinguishing between sex work and sex trafficking might be necessary on the basis of a crime victim perspective. Sex workers and sex trafficking victims have different needs. Measures based on a crime victim perspective should thus proceed from the needs that sex trafficking victims and sex workers identify themselves as having. In order to ensure that the victim perspective is better represented in proposals to combat sex trafficking, one suggestion for further studies would be to interview sex trafficking victims themselves. This could contribute to improved knowledge on this type of victim in the Nordic countries, and might ensure that the proposals of government agencies intended to provide support to the victims of sex trafficking were not merely based on the agencies’ own perceptions of this phenomenon, but rather on a better understanding of the needs of its victims. Similarly, it is important to improve the existing knowledge on other forms of human trafficking and exploitation, rather than exclusively focusing on sex trafficking. In Sweden, in particular, the one-sided focus on sex trafficking means that other forms of trafficking are being ignored. A sex trafficking debate that is based on an exaggeration of both the magnitude and severity of the problem risks ignoring the actual needs of crime victims, as well as other types of human trafficking, and results in a hunt for an elusive crime.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by Ragnar Söderbergs Stiftelse [grant number 1527501].

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to kindly thank Janne Flyghed, Ester Pollack and Anders Stenström for many useful comments. Thanks also to David Shannon for translating the article and for many helpful suggestions. Thank you to the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Finally, a warm thank you to Monash University, the School of Social Sciences and its staff, for letting me stay in an inspiring environment as a visiting academic in 2015.

Notes

1. A UN convention on organized crime was adopted in the year 2000 (the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000; see UNODC 2000). The Convention is supplemented by three protocols: one relating to human trafficking: ‘the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children’ (the so-called Palermo protocol), one relating to people smuggling and one relating to firearms and ammunition.

2. Besides the two inquiries, another two were published during the time period that seemed relevant at a first glance (SOU 2016:42; 2008:41), but at a closer look they did not include responses to sex trafficking.

3. In this quote, Brå employs the term ‘human trafficking’ but means ‘sex trafficking’, and the quote is taken from a report about sex trafficking.

Appendix 1. Analysed material

Political documents

SOU (2016). Ett starkt straffrättsligt skydd mot människohandel och annat utnyttjande av utsatta personer, SOU 2016:70 [Improved criminal law protections against human trafficking and other exploitation of vulnerable persons].

SOU (2008). Människohandel och barnäktenskap - ett förstärkt straffrättsligt skydd, SOU 2008:41 [Human trafficking and child marriage – improved criminal law protections].

Action Plan (2008). Handlingsplan mot prostitution och människohandel för sexuella ändamål. [Action Plan to Combat Prostitution and Sex Trafficking] Skr. 2007/08:167

The Swedish National Police, the National Criminal Investigation Department

Situation report 17 (2016). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. Polismyndigheten Rapport 2016.

Situation report 16 (2015). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. Polismyndigheten Rapport 2015.

Situation report 15 (2014) Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. RPS Rapport 2014.

Situation report 14 (2014). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. RPS Rapport 2014.

Situation report 13 (2012). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. RPS Rapport 2012.

Situation report 12 (2011). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. RPS Rapport 2011.

Situation report 11 (2010). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. RPS Rapport 2010.

Situation report 10 (2009). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål 2007-2008. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes 2007-2008]. Report 2009:1. Rikspolisstyrelsen, Polisavdelningen.

Situation report 9 (2007). Människohandel för sexuella och andra ändamål. [Human trafficking for sexual and other purposes]. Report 2007:6. Rikskriminalpolisen, Kriminalpolisenheten.

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet, Brå)

Fact Sheet (2017). Arbeta förebyggande mot...människohandel [Working to prevent…human trafficking]. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.

Brå (2011a). Prostitution och människohandel för sexuella ändamål. [Prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes]. Report 2011:18. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.

Brå (2011b). Polisanmälningar rörande människohandel för sexuella ändamål åren 2008-2010. [Police reports on human trafficking for sexual purposes 2008-2010]. Report 2011:19. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.

Brå (2010a). Prostitution och människohandel för sexuella ändamål. En första uppföljning av regeringens handlingsplan. [Prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes. A first follow up of the government’s action plan]. Report 2010:5. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.

Brå (2010b). Lokal organiserad brottslighet. En handbok om motåtgärder. [Local organized crime. A handbook on countermeasures]. Handbook. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.

Brå (2008a). The organisation of human trafficking. Report 2008:21. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.

Brå (2008b). Sexuell människohandel. En fråga om tillgång och efterfrågan. [Sexual human trafficking. A question of supply and demand]. Report 2008:19. Stockholm: Brottsförebyggande rådet.