Date: 08 October 2024
Opinion Piece By: Kelebogile Aplane
Sextortion as a Form of Corruption
Thirty years into our democracy, gender disparity still persists. Despite the constitutional promise and associated aspirational expectations, women remain at the receiving end of corruption.
The objective of the Constitution is to heal the divisions of South Africa’s past, improve the quality of life of all its citizens and free the potential of each person. Unfortunately, women have not basked in the fulfilment of this constitutional promise. Instead, their fate has been blighted because of corruption, as they are exposed to sexual extortion and exploitation daily. In certain circumstances, women face pressure to pay bribes due to financial constraints or a lack of power to resist the pressure.1
Sexual extortion, or sextortion, is defined as ‘the abuse of power to obtain a sexual favour’.2 Women experience sextortion in the workplace, legal fraternity, educational institutions, and refugee camps, but it is not limited to these sectors. Sextortion in the workplace is addressed through policies such as the Code of Good Practice on the Prevention of Elimination of Harassment in the Workplace, 2022 issued by the Department of Employment and Labour. The purpose of the Code is to ensure that South Africa complies with its international obligations while addressing the ‘prevention, elimination and management of all forms of harassment in the workplace’.
Sextortion is a gender-specific form of corruption and is experienced by more women than men, where they are forced to perform sexual favours in exchange for services. This form of corruption is not always recognised as such and is unlikely to be reported due to our culture of shaming and victim blaming.
Sextortion can have devastating effects, leaving severe social, physical, and psychological scars on its victim. Furthermore, women are more exposed to sextortion because of their sex and social norms that facilitate the aggressive sexual behaviour of men.3
Instead of money, sex is exchanged in order to gain access to a ‘benefit’, which in many cases a victim was legally entitled to in the first place. When sex becomes the currency of corruption, the exchange is gendered.4 Sextortion is a manifestation of sexual abuse that also involves a coercive, corrupt exchange in the interaction, a quid pro quo.5 For example, women in both the formal and informal sectors have to deal with this form of corruption when looking for employment or pursuing their own businesses, and it inadvertently poses a barrier to their potential to earn income or sustain their businesses.
Corruption is multi-dimensional, and corruption and gender inequality often intersect each other. Consequently, gender inequality breeds corruption which tends to exacerbate gender inequalities. While gender inequality inhibits a women’s ability to advance, corruption disrupts efforts to combat different forms of violations that arise from such inequality. Sextortion can only exist where perpetrators are able to abuse the power they hold by taking advantage of those who are dependent on their position of authority in order to achieve personal interests.
Therefore, when combatting corruption, it is important to explore gender-sensitive approaches and measures and promote gender equality such as strengthening reporting procedures for the survivors. Crucial to the task is dealing with the very vulnerabilities that render women at the mercy of potential perpetrators’ position of authority.
[1] Transparency International. 2020. Breaking the silence: The links between power, sex and corruption.
[2] UNODC – UNDP. 2020. Anti-corruption toolkit for women-owned micro, small and medium businesses in Fiji at page 44.
[3] International Bar Association – IBA. 2019. Sextortion: A crime of corruption and sexual exploitation 37.
[4] IAWJ. (2012). Stopping the abuse of power though sexual exploitation: Naming, shaming and ending sextortion. Retrieved from the International Association of Woman Judges website: www.iawj.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ Corruption-and-Sextortion-Resource-1.pdf at page 9.
[5] United Nations office on Drugs and Crimes, Gendered Impacts of Corruption, Chapter 8 (2020) https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/anti-corruption/module-8/key-issues/gendered-impacts-ofcorruption.html