Eva Wikström

Swedish experience of sheltered housing and conflicting theories in use with special regards to honour related violence (HRV)

One aspect of violence against women and children is what is referred to as honour related violence. Honour related violence (HRV) is a form of violence which is now on the agenda in several countries as a violation of human rights. From 2002 the Swedish government started paying serious attention to this issue. The aim of this paper is to present the Swedish government programme dealing with HRV with special focus on sheltered housing as the prevalent measure to safeguard victims of HRV. Our results indicate that sheltered housing without doubt plays an important role for victims in the sense of providing short term safety. Notwithstanding the adequacy of sheltered housing as a means to provide support and safety, the outcome of the support is ambivalent in the long run. Our qualitative interviews of girls with previous experiences of staying at sheltered housing demonstrate the risk of the practice, turning one kind of control and isolation into another kind. The ambivalence of sheltered housing is further analysed in terms of conflicting logics of social work practices reflecting the Swedish conflicting discourses on HRV.

The Swedish Welfare-State's unnoticed helpers-Local support to Asian Seasonal Migrant Berry-pickers in distress

Every summer and fall, thousands of seasonal migrant workers travel cross the world to pick berries in Scandinavia, led by the expectations of returning to the nation of residency with an improvement of their financial situation. The processes behind the migration-movement and berry-industry’s import of workers must partly be viewed through the lenses of globalisation of capital opening up for a global labour-market, but which also enforces global division of economy in which levels of global inequality continues to be high. Through temporary berry-picking labour in Sweden the migrant workers struggle to make improvements of their living-standard in their country of residency, while they simultaneously solve a quest for labour which the Swedes are reluctant to do.