RT Article
T1 Constructions of migrant victims of labor exploitation in Nordic court cases
JF International review of victimology
VO 30
IS 2
SP 261
OP 281
A1 Schoultz, Isabel
A1 Spanger, Marlene 1970-
A1 Jokinen, Anniina 1982-
A1 Jahnsen, Synnøve Økland 1981-
A1 Muhire, Heraclitos
A1 Pekkarinen, Anna-Greta
A2 Spanger, Marlene 1970-
A2 Jokinen, Anniina 1982-
A2 Jahnsen, Synnøve Økland 1981-
A2 Muhire, Heraclitos
A2 Pekkarinen, Anna-Greta
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1888278951
AB The aim of this article is to explore how courts produce certain representations of victims of labor exploitation in the Nordic context based on court judgments from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. To achieve this, we analyze and compare criminal court judgments focused on the exploitation of migrant workers by asking: How are ‘victims’ of labor exploitation represented in Nordic court judgments? What is left unproblematic and silenced? In each country, we have identified criminal court cases that have legally examined aspects of the exploitation of migrant workers, in total, 91 court judgments. Drawing on Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach, we can show that the representations of victims apparent in the court judgments involve a legal construction of vulnerability that is reserved for the most marginalized migrant workers. The narrow representation silences the broader socio-economic context in which migrant workers exist. Our results also indicate that the threshold for being defined as a victim of labor exploitation is lower in some of the Nordic countries and higher in others. Thus, while there is a normative consensus that the exploitation of migrant workers should be prosecuted, in practice, the court judgments reflect substantial differences in the legal interpretations applied across the Nordic countries.
K1 court cases
K1 Trafficking
K1 Forced labor
K1 problem representations
K1 Victims
K1 Labor exploitation
DO 10.1177/02697580231174912