A 38-year-old woman has been convicted in Denmark for human exploitation, marking the first such case under a relatively new provision in the penal code. The woman’s sentence was handed down on Monday.
The paragraph on human exploitation was introduced to address gaps in the existing legislation on human trafficking. The newer provision prohibits exploiting a victim’s vulnerabilities to force them to work under “manifestly unreasonable conditions.” This differs from human trafficking, which focuses on exploitation through coercion and threats.
In 2002, the penal code initially addressed human trafficking with a provision targeting cross-border crime, specifically instances where individuals were forced into labor, such as prostitution. However, in 2022, the Danish Parliament recognized that some exploitation cases weren’t covered by the human trafficking paragraph. This led to the adoption of the new provision on human exploitation to broaden the scope of the law.
The penalty for human exploitation can be imprisonment for up to six years. Human trafficking carries a higher penalty of up to ten years in prison.