The focus of actions to combat human trafficking has been mainly directed towards sexual exploitation, whilst other types of human trafficking have been given little attention. This comparative paper highlights victim characteristics, based on court cases, as potential factors leading to their exploitation in Australia and Sweden. Both countries have only recently adopted criminal legislation prohibiting labor trafficking, and there have only been a few court cases of labor trafficking in either country. The low number of court cases may be the result of focus on trafficking for sexual exploitation, and also to labor trafficking victims being socially constructed as fragile and naïve, setting an unrealistic ‘benchmark’ for their identification and successful prosecution. This study identifies patterns that emerge from the comparison, highlighting that labor trafficking victims who are considered ‘a strong case to be presented in court’ are viewed as ‘ideal’ victims, and that traffickers are not from organized crime groups that can be monitored at a transnational level. It is argued that the current trafficking legislation has a focus which reduces the likelihood of a conviction for labor trafficking, but also that its limitations are bound to broader socio-political understanding of victims in this area.