Investigative Interviews with Youth Victims of Human Trafficking for Sexual Purposes in Sweden

This study examines the quality of questions asked by police officers and responses elicited from youths subjected to human trafficking for sexual purposes in Sweden. Preliminary results show that the police officers ask few invitations but a large number of option-posing questions. These latter questions elicited information but the responses may not be extensive or accurate. The police officers’ use of directive questions and social pressure was associated with evasive responses. This finding seems to be due to the content of these utterances as they concern the perpetrators’ activities or details about the girls’ actions. Summary Previous studies on human trafficking concern, for example, treatment and protection of exposed children and identification of child victims (Bokhari, 2008; Gozdziak, 2010). So far studies on how police officers investigate child trafficking is limited. Many studies on investigative interviewing have shown that children can provide accurate reports from 4 years of age, but they might be influenced by suggestive questions. Hence, elicited details and level of accuracy are heavily reliant on the ways in which children are interviewed (Malloy et al., 2011). Invitations elicit information that is much more likely to be accurate and three times more informative than information elicited using option-posing and suggestive prompts (Lamb et al., 1996). This study explores how investigative interviews with victims of human trafficking are performed. It is part of a larger project about human trafficking in Sweden. Our data consist of court files and preliminary investigations of all cases treated by the Swedish court since the law against human trafficking was introduced in 2002.