The reckoning of sexual violence and corruption: A gendered study of sextortion in migration to South Africa
Ashleigh Bicker Caarten, Loes van Heugten & Ortrun Merkle
#2022-009
This research seeks to understand experiences of sextortion of African
migrants migrating to South Africa and how these are gendered. This
research is interesting and relevant both for academic and policy
discussion, for two reasons. For one, sextortion is an emerging concept
that has not been sufficiently studied and for another, South-South
migration is still frequently forgotten in studies about migration. This
paper analyses and discusses the 16 semi-structured interviews with
experts in migration, corruption and gender as a first scoping study
looking at migrants' experiences with sextortion in the South African
context. The results have highlighted that women are most vulnerable to
sextortion and that migrants not only encounter sextortion during their
journeys, but also after arriving in South Africa. This can be explained
referring to South Africa's culture where both gender-based violence and
xenophobia are deeply rooted, making up for an "ideal" environment for
sextortion to take place. At last, this paper discusses the different
consequences that surviving sextortion has, which are, among others, the
spread of STIs, unwanted pregnancies, shame, stigmatisation, and
normalisation.
Keywords: Sextortion, Migration, Corruption, Gender-based violence,
Sexual violence, Sexual transactions, South-South migration,
Intra-Africa migration, South African migration
JEL Classification: D73, F22, F59