Brottsoffer, inte nationellt säkerhetshot - Utvisningshot och tillgång till rättsskipning för kvinnor utsatta för människohandel

Sammanfattning: Human trafficking for sexual purposes is a crime that mainly affects women coming from other countries. The women are brought to Sweden and forced to sell sexual services while under threat and hard control of their perpetrators. Fighting men's violence against women has for many years been an important goal for the Swedish government. Sweden has signed the Istanbul Convention, which recognizes gender-specific violence as a structural problem, and stipulates that the victims' perspective must permeate the State Parties work against the violence. Women who have been subjected to human trafficking have the right to access to justice through the basic conventions of the EU, the UN and the Council of Europe. This means these women should in practice be able to report the crime, and then get the help and support they need to be able to return to a normal life. Authorities and organizations that work with women who have been exposed to human trafficking testify that few women dare to report the crime to the police. The reason is that when a police report is made, an internal migration control is made if the police suspect that the woman doesn’t have a residence permit in Sweden. The control risks leading to the woman being placed in refugee detention and then deported. Because of the risks associated with the crime, such as threats, stigma, and repeated human trafficking, many women do not want or dare to report the crime of fear of having to return to their country of origin. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how a reduced threat of expulsion can lead to increased access to justice for women who have been subjected to trafficking for sexual purposes. One of the instruments that could prevent expulsion is firewalls. Firewalls is a principle that means that migration control should not be carried out by authorities that also fulfil human rights. The goal of firewalls is that women should be able to report trafficking to the police without risking expulsion. Another way of reducing the risk of expulsion is that the woman receives a temporary residence permit. In Sweden, it is possible to obtain such a permit for a reflection period and during crime investigation. However, the regulation has been criticized for missing a crime victim's perspective and not being used in practice. The essay puts the interest in expelling people who are not entitled to reside in the country, against the interest in fulfilling human rights. Based on the postcolonial feminist theory, the essay analyzes the paradoxes of the legislation which lead to strategies on combating men's violence against women excluding the perspective of a woman without residence permit.