Ett namn som bedrar? - En kvalitativ studie om professionellas erfarenheter och kunskap om sugardejting bland unga under 18 år

Sammanfattning: This study aimed to explore which understanding social work professionals have of sugar dating among youth under the age of 18. Furthermore, the purpose of the study was to discover which children engage in sugar dating from the perspective of professionals. We conducted six semi-structured interviews with different social work professionals. The findings from our interviews were analyzed through the use of Erving Goffman’s framing theory and stigma theory, in the light of symbolic interactionism. We applied the theories to understand how professionals frame sugar dating and which effects it has on the interactions with the youths that they meet in their daily work. The study found that youths involved in sugar dating are a vulnerable group and that social work professionals require more knowledge and understanding of sugar dating to support and protect these individuals effectively. We found that the way professionals frame sugar dating is based on their previous experiences and their knowledge about prostitution. Additionally, the way professionals frame sugar dating affects their interactions when meeting a youth that they suspect is involved in sugar dating, a few professionals express a fear of stigmatizing the youth by comparing sugar dating to prostitution. This also correlates to one of the main findings of our study, which are experiences that displays uncertainty among the professionals on how to define sugar dating in comparison to prostitution. Our study found that the way professionals view sugar dating varies from a cover-up for traditional prostitution to something that exists somewhere in between. We also found that professionals considered children with problematic backgrounds more likely to be found in sugar dating. Factors that were highlighted by the professionals are lack of family relationships, previous experience of physical or sexual abuse, or mental illness in general. A conclusion drawn from the findings of this study was that there is a need for future research about the phenomenon of sugar dating overall and the implications of the knowledge that social work professionals have.