Nyapachuma mobilises ‘forces’ against sextortion
…An ignored but dangerous form of violence against women
The Mast interviewed veteran women’s rights defender and former commissioner in the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Dr Emily Sikazwe, the founder and chairperson of Nyapachuma Memorial Foundation (NMF), on the organisation’s campaign against an insidious form of sexual harassment known as ‘sextortion’ rampant in universities, colleges and work places. Below is the verbatim of the interview.
“NYAPACHUMA Memorial Foundation works with young women and girls. We do this through international, national and community dialogues between generations so as to build the capacities of young women and girls to be whoever they want to be in life.
We focus on young women and girls because if we get it right with young women and girls, then all of us would learn how to fly, and the world would be a better place. This year, Nyapachuma is interpreting the theme for the International Women’s Day theme by working with universities such as University of Zambia (UNZA), St. Eugene and and Cavendish universities
Last year, apart from those I’ve mentioned, we worked with the Natural Resources Development College (NRDC) as well as Evelyn Horn College. And with these universities we are focused on sextortion because it’s an issue of power over young women. It does happen rarely to boys, but usually it is girls in universities that are affected most.
So, we thought if we could discuss with the university administrations, and no university is spared in this because it’s very rampant in Zambia, we are going to raise awareness to the students as well as the administrators as well. Because if we are going to allow a situation where sex for marks, sex for jobs, is going to be the order of the day, then our country will not develop.
Because what sort of a profession are you producing if you just passed them because they gave you sex? What sort of employee are you mentoring, are you training, if she’s going to get promotions because she gave you sex? And they didn’t do that because they wanted to, but because you coerced them. So, sextortion is about coercing young women and girls in order for them to do you a favour.
That favour would be nude pictures, you’re blackmailing them or you would be coercing them around the issue of, ‘sleep with me so that I can promote you, sleep with me so I can give you good marks’. So, that’s what Nyapachuma is focusing on. Last weekend, we had a seminar around the same, and we are going to have dialogues in universities starting this month in all the universities that I’ve mentioned, so that administrators can take steps to have policies on campuses around sextortion.
The students themselves have agreed to form safe spaces against sextortion in their universities. So, they are going to be our eyes and ears on what is going on. We also have had students from various universities writing their stories. Although we have used pseudonyms, although we are not mentioning the universities, we know which universities. We also know who among the lecturers is behaving like this. We will have private discussions with them. And if the issues are criminal, we will take them to the Victim Support Unit or Legal Aid Clinic for Women to deal with the scourge. So, that’s what Nyapatuma has been doing since last year. Because last year that’s when we discovered that the scourge is actually spreading very rapidly. And as I said, workplaces have not been spared. So that is how, in the year where we are celebrating Beijing Plus 30, we expect that women and girls in universities are going to be safe. This is not the case, and we are not going to leave things as they are. We are going to step in and do something about it.
Universities have to start putting policies in place around and against sextortion and GBV, because sextortion is part of GBV. These issues affect the mental health of the young women and girls. Some of them are committing suicide. And in a country that has a gender policy in place, in a country that is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), that is a signatory to the African Union Solemn Declaration, to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender, and to have it in the Constitution that women and men are equal, this should not be allowed. And we are hoping that all stakeholders: the churches, government, civil society organisations, communities, traditional leaders, can stand up and say, ‘this is not a norm’, it can be eradicated because it is human made, and we join hands together and do something about sextortion and GBV.
We hope that the media houses can help us popularise this. We’re doing podcasts and we’re going to make sure we share those podcasts with radio stations so that people can learn about sextortion. Those who don’t know, those who know must understand that this is a criminal act and must be stamped. So ma’am, just maybe I know you’ve spoken a lot about this sextortion which again you are referring to as GBV.
Yes, a form of GBV. A form of GBV, yes. So you are saying that this programme started sometime last year. Yes, particularly on 6th October. But Nyapachuma Memorial Foundation was registered in 2013, both in Zambia and in Canada.
Yes, so what are we expecting, like in the near future? We are expecting that GBV in institutions of higher learning will be reduced. GBV and sextortion in workplaces will be reduced because people will be aware. We are also expecting that all institutions will have GBV, sexual harassment and sextortion policies at the workplace. Because for us that is important.
How has been the response? Very good. Last year, we did more than 700 students. For now we are just focusing on Lusaka. Next year, we want to go to Central Province and Copperbelt provinces and we think that we can go to Muchinga, the Kapasa Makasa University as well. It’s not easy to go in these places. It takes a lot of money. Some will be using Zoom to speak with students in some of the campuses where we cannot reach.”
