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Article History

Received: 20 December 2024

Accepted: 9 October 2025

First Online: 27 October 2025

Declarations

:

: We do not have conflicts of interest in relation to this paper.

: This research is based in a setting with comparatively weak institutional arrangements, which had two important implications for our ethical considerations: First, no formal way of obtaining ethical clearance exists; we would thus have to rely on our own judgment. Second, our interviewees were in particular need of protection, as they might face violent repercussions should their identities become known. We treated this double challenge in the following way: First, we followed the standards and guidelines set out for empirical work in Sweden, where two authors are based. Albeit we were not able to apply for ethical clearance from the Swedish authority (Etikprövningsmyndigheten), as our data are not situated in Sweden, we are very well aware of these guidelines and applied them to our research. Second, we went beyond those strict ethical guidelines and conducted additional measures to protect those that provided the data. We informed the participants about the purpose of the study before all interviews and how the data would be used, assuring them that we would maintain their anonymity throughout the study. The interview data is only accessible to the first author of this paper. To ensure anonymity, we do not provide information in the paper that could lead to the identification of individuals, such as gender, age, or occupation. We asked each of the participants to select a safe place for the interview and conducted the interviews at the place they chose. We asked if an audio recording was allowed and then asked if the interviewees would be available for follow-up talks, which then took the form of informal interviews. All the participants were clearly informed that they had a right to drop out of the process whenever they wanted. Informed consent was thus obtained.