Uganda has been urged to enact specific legislation criminalising demands for sexual favours by people in positions of authority in exchange for employment, promotions, examination marks or preferential treatment, following Tanzania’s example, which introduced such a law in 2007.
A December 2021 study commissioned by the Inspectorate of Government (IGG) on the cost and extent of corruption in Uganda’s education sector found that at least one in ten respondents had heard of a case in which a teacher or school official offered a child good grades or a pass in an examination in exchange for sexual favours.
The research, conducted by the Governance Transparency Institute, was based on a nationally representative household survey of 1,600 respondents. It found that 10 per cent of respondents had, at least once in the preceding five years, heard of a teacher or school official proposing sexual favours to a child in exchange for educational benefits.
The findings highlight how people entrusted with authority can exploit their positions to obtain sexual favours from those seeking services or opportunities.
The problem, however, extends beyond the education sector. Research in Uganda’s public health sector has documented cases of supervisors demanding sexual favours in exchange for favourable job evaluations, promotions and salary increases.
Female graduates have also publicly accused prospective employers of demanding sex before offering them jobs. Despite the evidence and complaints reported over the years, Uganda has no specific criminal offence addressing sexual corruption, also known as sextortion.
Lawyer and human rights activist Patricia Munabi says the absence of explicit provisions in existing laws has made it difficult to effectively punish people who abuse their positions of authority to demand sexual favours.
Munabi argues that Uganda needs to amend its legislation to expressly criminalise the practice and establish specific penalties for perpetrators. She made the remarks during a presentation and experience-sharing session on sexual corruption, where participants examined approaches adopted by other countries to prevent and punish the vice.
Sexual corruption occurs when someone abuses a position of authority to demand sexual favours in exchange for a service, opportunity or other benefit. Unlike conventional bribery, where money or material benefits change hands, sex becomes the currency of corruption.
The Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), in an October 2019 analysis titled Sextortion in Uganda: Form of Corruption Exacerbating Gender Inequality, identified education, employment and access to government services as some of the areas where the practice occurs.
The EPRC observed that female students could face demands for sexual favours from teachers who withhold or deliberately under-mark their examination results. Women seeking employment or already in service could face similar demands from employers who control recruitment, promotions and other workplace benefits.
The research also identified cases in which women seeking government documents, permits or operating licences were allegedly asked for sexual relationships by officials responsible for processing their applications.
The consequences extend beyond the immediate exploitation. In education, victims may accumulate retakes, delay completing their courses or abandon school altogether. In employment, some women may give up job searches or leave workplaces where they face sexual demands.
Evidence from Makerere University also illustrates the extent of the concerns. In 2018, a committee chaired by Prof Sylvia Tamale investigated sexual harassment at the university and interviewed 234 people, including students and staff.
According to the committee’s findings, 80 per cent of those interviewed said they were aware of sexual exploitation, including arrangements in which lecturers exchanged marks for sexual favours.
The finding reflected awareness among interviewees and did not mean that 80 per cent had personally experienced sexual exploitation. Nevertheless, it pointed to concerns about the abuse of academic authority and students’ reluctance to report such conduct.
In another example, a May 2019 report by Daily Monitor documented complaints by female graduates in northern Uganda who accused prospective employers of demanding sexual favours before offering them jobs.
One of them, Collin Adongo, a Makerere University graduate, said she had been asked for sex on three occasions, the latest by a senior official at a public university in Lira.
The vice has also been documented in the public health sector. A 2021 study published in the journal Human Resources for Health, titled Uganda’s response to sexual harassment in the public health sector: from “Dying Silently” to gender-transformational HRH policy, examined sexual harassment and abuse of authority in government health workplaces.
The researchers cited a 2012 ministry of Health gender study in which 32 per cent of respondents said expectations of sexual favours in exchange for favourable performance evaluations, promotions or salary increases were either somewhat common or very common.
The same research reviewed a 2003 ministry of Health study in which about 24 per cent of health workers, most of them female nurses, reported having experienced sexual abuse by a supervisor.
Although these figures cover broader forms of sexual harassment and abuse rather than sextortion alone, the 2021 researchers documented how men in senior positions used their control over recruitment, training, duty schedules and promotions to pressure female employees into sexual relationships.
Women who resisted such demands risked unfavourable work evaluations, retaliation or losing employment opportunities. These findings reinforce concerns raised by Munabi that sexual corruption should not be treated in the same way as conventional bribery.
She argues that under existing corruption laws, which can punish both the person offering and the person receiving a bribe, victims of sexual demands could themselves be exposed to prosecution if the same approach were applied to sextortion.
The power imbalance between an official demanding sex and a person seeking a job, examination result or public service makes the two situations fundamentally different. Munabi says legislation should therefore target those who abuse their authority rather than punish people who submit to sexual demands because they fear losing an opportunity or service.
She also cautioned that lawmakers must carefully consider the evidential requirements for prosecuting sexual corruption. Since the proposed offence would carry criminal penalties, prosecutors would need to establish guilt to the required criminal standard.
However, victims often face difficulties producing evidence, particularly when sexual demands are made privately and without witnesses.
Tanzania’s experience
Tanzania was presented during the workshop as a possible model for Uganda. Unlike conventional bribery provisions, Section 25 of Tanzania’s Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act specifically targets people who abuse their authority to demand sexual favours rather than treating victims as parties to a corrupt transaction.
Mia Mjengwa, a Swedish national who has lived in Tanzania for the past 20 years, said the country began addressing sexual corruption through legislation in 2007. The practice is locally known as rushwa ya ngono, meaning sexual bribery.
“In Tanzania, they identified the problem of sexual corruption a long time ago and established legal frameworks and mechanisms for fighting and preventing it,” said Mjengwa, who heads Programmes and Partner Collaboration at Karibu Tanzania Organization.
Legislators subsequently increased the maximum prison sentence from three to 10 years and raised the maximum fine from five million to 10 million Tanzanian shillings.
Mjengwa said Tanzania’s response goes beyond legislation, with institutions developing preventive measures suited to their working environments.
She cited Folk Development Colleges, which provide adult education, as examples of institutions that develop mitigation plans, sensitise learners about sexual corruption and establish mechanisms to protect them from exploitation.
Community engagement is another component of the approach. Football matches and bicycle races are used as opportunities to bring people together to discuss sexual corruption, understand its consequences and identify ways of preventing it.
Dr Asa Elden, co-chair of the Global Civil Society Coalition for the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), cautioned that legislation alone would not address the problem unless victims had safe and reliable channels through which to report abuse.
She said reporting mechanisms would remain ineffective if victims feared prosecution for supposedly offering bribes when they were actually responding to demands from people in positions of authority.
Prevention, she added, requires institutions to recognise the risks of sexual corruption and establish systems through which victims can report abuse without fear of punishment or retaliation.
The Inspectorate of Government says some cases involving sexual corruption are already attracting investigative attention, although the absence of a clearly defined offence presents challenges.
Munira Ali, the IGG spokesperson, disclosed that the institution was investigating a case involving a senior official in which some of the allegations related to sexual corruption.
She said existing legal provisions could address certain aspects of the vice, but the absence of an expressly defined offence leaves gaps in how such cases are handled.
Ali acknowledged that Uganda still has considerable work to do to establish a comprehensive legal and institutional response.
Speaking at the two-day workshop, Denmark’s Ambassador to Uganda, Signe Winding Albjerg, expressed optimism that the discussions would produce useful recommendations, noting that different stakeholders had participated in examining how the vice should be addressed.
Participants also discussed a toolkit on sexual corruption, which is expected to guide government institutions, anti-corruption agencies and civil society organisations in identifying, preventing and responding to cases.