Women forced to trade sex for land rights, global research finds | Land Portal

By: Paola Totaro

Date: March 16th 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation


WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - One in five people worldwide report having paid a bribe for land, with rates even higher in sub-Saharan Africa where women say they are forced to trade sex for property rights, according to research by a top global anti-corruption watchdog.


With women increasingly involved in agriculture in Africa, their livelihoods become more vulnerable to such sexual extortion, according to a report by Transparency International presented on Wednesday to the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty.


For such women, access to and control of land is critical to their incomes, food supplies and social welfare, it said.


Globally, one in five people reported paying a bribe for land services, the report found.


In sub-Saharan Africa, one in three people reported having done so, with women in the region reporting sexual extortion as the most pertinent land corruption issue, it said.


Sexual extortion in land transactions tends to harm women who are young, single or widowed and cannot afford to pay cash bribes, it said.


It occurs when women seek land titles or negotiate access to property, it said.


Data from Ghana last year showed nearly 40 percent of women compared with 23 percent of men said corruption hindered their access to and control over land resources, it said.


"The ways in which women are more commonly exposed to corruption is through bribery and harassment, including sexual harassment," it said.


Women also tend to be taken advantage of due to a lack of knowledge of their rights and to low levels of literacy, the report noted.


Transparency International, based in Berlin, added that there were major challenges in gathering evidence on sexual extortion, due to cultural sensitivity and issues of psychological coercion, consensual sexual relationships and victim blaming.


Some countries reported that survey teams were stymied because they needed permission from women’s families or spouses first, and husbands often accompanied their wives during their interviews.


Sexual extortion could be prosecuted under anti-corruption laws as well as laws against gender-based violence, sexual harassment and discrimination, the report said.


However, anti-corruption laws very often lack specific reference to sexual extortion, it said.


 


(Reporting by Paolo Totaro, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)


---


Read original article here

Copyright © Source (mentioned above). All rights reserved. The Land Portal distributes materials without the copyright owner’s permission based on the “fair use” doctrine of copyright, meaning that we post news articles for non-commercial, informative purposes. If you are the owner of the article or report and would like it to be removed, please contact us at hello@landportal.info and we will remove the posting immediately.

Various news items related to land governance are posted on the Land Portal every day by the Land Portal users, from various sources, such as news organizations and other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. The copyright lies with the source of the article; the Land Portal Foundation does not have the legal right to edit or correct the article, nor does the Foundation endorse its content. To make corrections or ask for permission to republish or other authorized use of this material, please contact the copyright holder.

Share this page