Sailor receiving heartless victimisation (9)

I believe the answer is:

targeting

'victimisation' is the definition.
(targeting or victimising someone)

'sailor receiving heartless' is the wordplay.
'sailor' becomes 'tar' (slang term for a sailor).
'receiving' becomes 'getting' ('get' can be a synonym of 'receive').
'heartless' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters).
'getting' with its centre taken out is 'geting'.
'tar'+'geting'='TARGETING'

(Another definition for targeting that I've seen is " Going for".)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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