How Are Depictions of Women and Foreigners in Swedish Anti-Trafficking Discourse Shaped by the UN Anti-Trafficking Protocol? : A Critical Discourse Analysis of the NMT Lägesrapport 2020 and the National Referral Mechanism

Abstract: The 2000 UN anti-trafficking Protocol was the first internationally legally binding document to provide a cohesive definition of trafficking and is therefore considered one of the most important documents within international anti-trafficking discourse. Therefore, it is relevant to examine the ways in which the normative aspects and discursive themes of the Protocol are reproduced transnationally, into a national context. This thesis analyzes the ways in which depictions of women and foreigners in Swedish anti-trafficking discourse are shaped by the UN anti-trafficking protocol. Using a materialist feminist framework, it was found that the stereotypes constructed by the UN protocol are highly visible in the chosen Swedish governmental documents, which is indicative of the normative and discursive power that the UN protocol holds within anti-trafficking discourse. It was also found that the extent to which these stereotypes were reproduced varied depending on the Swedish document, which suggests that such discourse serves different functions depending on the aim and target audience of whichever document.