Polisens arbete mot prostitution och människohandel för sexuella ändamål : En kvalitativ fallstudie av hur polisen implementerar den nationella handlingsplanen mot prostitution och människohandel

Sammanfattning: Human trafficking is a complex and widespread problem that exists all over the world. The police play an important role in combating prostitution and human trafficking and thus, this study seeks to examine the role of the police in the implementation of the Swedish national action plan against prostitution and human trafficking. More specifically, the thesis aimed to answer how the practical work against prostitution and human trafficking for sexual purposes is conducted and governed in relation to what is stated in the national action plan. Further, the thesis also aimed to answer how the implementation of the national action plan is affected by the police's competence and access to resources. In order to answer the research questions, a qualitative approach was applied. The chosen method of research was in-depth interviews and in total, five interviews was performed. The interviewees were police officers with special experience and expertise on how the work against prostitution and/or human trafficking is conducted within Stockholm. Three of the interviewees work at a special unit that solely work with human trafficking cases (the Human Trafficking Section). The other two interviewees work with prostitution cases within their local police areas. In sum, the results show that the Human Trafficking Section's work follows the action plan to a large extent. However, the action plan doesn’t govern how the local police officers should work against prostitution, which means we cannot draw any conclusions about how well the action plan is followed within the local police areas. Further, the results show that there is a lack of resources in both the human trafficking section and the local police areas. This lack of resources means that a large number of human trafficking cases most likely go undetected. The results also show that the local police areas that have an established and regular work against prostitution have sufficient competence to be able to conduct the work in an efficient manner, but the majority of the local police areas lack this knowledge. This again leads to a large part of prostitution and human trafficking going undetected.