Growing concerns over ‘sextortion’ cases

Catherine Mazorodze, a farmworker in Zimbabwe's Manicaland province, recently jumped at the opportunity to secure a small plot of land of her own – distributed by the leaders of her village – but soon realised there was a price to pay. ‘The traditional leader of the area told me I was young and not entitled to allocated land, since it was meant to benefit the elderly,’ she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. ‘He blatantly said if I wanted a piece of land ... I had to have sex with him. Out of desperation and poverty, I agreed to his terms,’ the 37-year-old said. Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) notes that Mazorodze effectively became a victim of sextortion, a growing form of corruption that forces women to offer sexual services in exchange for land, employment or job opportunities. Legally it often falls between the cracks and does not get prosecuted as either a sexual crime or corruption, said Marilyn Sibanda, a legal officer at TIZ. ‘The moment you consent, the criminal element falls out,’ she said. A report on the IoL site notes that the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation says land is unevenly distributed in Zimbabwe and women, particularly in rural areas, are largely treated as dependants of men, not as landholders or farmers in their own right.