Identification work: Ambivalence, qualms and resistance in social workers’ identification of trafficking victims

Abstract

Social workers play a pivotal part in the implementation of human trafficking policies, not least in identification of victims. When assessing who is and who is not a trafficking victim, boundaries are drawn between different groups of people and the human trafficking definition is operationalised. However, the actual practice of trafficking identification has not been sufficiently explored. Based on 12 qualitative interviews with social workers in Norway and taking an institutional ethnographic approach, I argue that a framing of identification as identification work underlines the ongoing assessments and actions that comprise identification, as well as ethical tensions in social workers’ identification practice.

Anti-Trafficking Professionals and Institutionalized Violence in Spain: An Exploratory Study

“…However, they can also do enormous harm to "trafficking victims" without intending to, merely by performing their duties as defined by the institutions and organizations in which they operate (Galtung 1985). Evidence produced in various contexts confirms that these anti-trafficking professionals can, in fact, be accomplices in the violence perpetrated during "protection" interventions (Brunovskis 2024;Clemente 2021b;Cordisco Tsai et al 2022b).…”