Sextortion, Sexual Corruption, and Female Entrepreneurship: Trapped in the Web of Corrupt Informal Networks

Sextortion, the sexual form of corruption, is a common but underreported form of corruption. It predominately affects vulnerable and marginalised people such as women, illegal migrants, and children. There have also been difficulties arising in addressing sextortion and punishing its culprit. Some of these limitations are due to blurring intersections between sexual violence and corruption; inadequate anti-sextortion and anti-corruption laws; and the stigma and victimisation victims of sextortion face. All these factors have resulted in underreported cases and a lack of data, which in turn undermine the incentives to study or address this harmful form of corruption. However, there have been a number of developing studies on sextortion within the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector (WASH), but this has not been the case in other sectors such as business, education, or politics. Therefore, this paper studies the impacts of sextortion on female entrepreneurs. It expands the literature on corruption and sextortion by examining how the community of female entrepreneurs view sextortion, and how they protect themselves against sextortion, by making use of qualitative data from 25 participants across 2 focus groups conducted in Burkina Faso. With the utilisation of an inductive approach, specifically thematic analysis, this study shows that sextortion is a rampant occurrence that female entrepreneurs face. This is caused by a range of factors, from the lack of finance and resources to the regularisation and registration of business. As found in other sextortion studies, this paper finds that vulnerable people with limited options are most at risk, and there are persuasive traces and evidence of sextortion across other sectors. This paper also finds that sextortion is facilitated by corrupt (informal) networks, which are dominated by men. This is exacerbated by the direct physical contact required for most forms and aspects of entrepreneurial activities, especially with civil servants. In addition to finding traces of sextortion in other sectors, this paper equally uncovers the varying impacts of sextortion on early-stage entrepreneurs and established entrepreneurs, married and unmarried women, and its detrimental impacts on efficiency, productivity and the economy. Additionally, this paper identified 3 major mechanisms of sextortion – culprit-based sextortion, victim-based sextortion, and the silent-code. Despite the mechanism used for sextortion, women (or the subjects) are simply the victims. In regards to this, this paper identified various ways of curbing sextortion. However, one of the most sustainable means of addressing sextortion is by reducing physical contact between civil servants and the public, across all sectors, and promoting e-government and a contactless society.