Unsilencing Sexual Torture: Responses to Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Denmark

In 2004, Green and Ward pointed out that ‘criminology has largely ignored the crime of torture’ (2004: 125; see also Stanley, 2008). The years following 9/11 included profound developments in the study of torture, namely in response to intensifications in torture debates related to the so-called ‘war on terror’, and in the use of ‘clean’ torture (see Kelly, 2012; Rejali, 2007). Simultaneously, interests have grown in the field of Border Criminologies1, especially in the treatment of people seeking asylum in countries that increasingly respond with forms of securitisation, rather than humanitarianism (Aliverti, 2012; Bosworth, 2014; Stumpf, 2006).