Sexual Violations: Harassment, Coercion, Trafficking and Transactional Sex

1Why this matters

Most people you meet will treat you with respect. A few will not. Some people try to get sex through pressure, tricks, money or force, and young people are their most common targets. Knowing exactly what these violations look like, recognising the warning signs early, and knowing where to get help can protect you and your friends. If anything in this lesson has happened to you, remember: it is never the victim's fault, and help is free.

2Four kinds of violation

• Sexual harassment: unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature that makes a person feel uncomfortable, afraid or humiliated. Examples include sexual comments or jokes, touching someone without permission, and sending sexual messages or pictures, including by phone. It can happen at school, on the street, in a bus or online.
• Sexual coercion: pressuring, tricking or forcing someone into sexual activity. Coercion includes threats, repeated pressure, getting someone drunk, and abuse of power, for example a person in authority offering marks, a job or money in exchange for sex.
• Human trafficking: recruiting, moving or keeping a person by force, threats or deception in order to exploit them, for example in forced labour or sexual exploitation. Traffickers often trick young people with false promises of a job in the city or abroad, a scholarship, or modelling work.
• Transactional sex: a sexual relationship entered into in exchange for money, gifts, school fees, phone credit, lifts or other favours. It is often with an older, richer partner, sometimes called a "sugar daddy" or "sugar mummy". When the young person is under 18, it is child defilement, a crime.

3Why transactional sex is so risky

• Unequal power: the person who receives the gifts feels unable to refuse sex or to insist on a condom.
• Higher risk of HIV and STIs: older partners have had more years in which to become infected, and condoms are less likely to be used.
• Pregnancy and school dropout, which can end educational plans.
• Emotional harm: shame, fear and loss of self-worth.

4Effects of sexual violations

Victims may suffer physical injury, unwanted pregnancy and STIs including HIV; emotional harm such as fear, anxiety, depression and loss of trust; and social harm such as dropping out of school or being isolated. Getting help quickly reduces all of these.

5Where to get help in Rwanda

You can also tell a parent, a teacher, the school counsellor or a community health worker. After rape or any sexual assault, go to a health facility as soon as possible, and within 72 hours: medicine given in that time can greatly reduce the risk of HIV infection (post-exposure prophylaxis, PEP) and of pregnancy (emergency contraception). If you can, do not wash first, because evidence helps the investigation.

Worked example: spotting trafficking

Mutesi, 17, meets a friendly woman at the bus park in Musanze. The woman offers her a well-paid job as a housemaid in another country. She says Mutesi must leave tomorrow, must not tell her parents, and that she will keep Mutesi's identity card "to arrange papers". Should Mutesi go?

1. Look for the red flags. A stranger offering a job that seems too good to be true; pressure to leave quickly; secrecy from family; someone else keeping her identity documents; travel abroad arranged by an unknown person.
2. Count them. Every one of these is a known sign of trafficking. Taking a person's identity card is a common way traffickers stop victims from leaving.
3. Decide. Mutesi should refuse, keep her documents, tell her parents or a trusted adult, and report the offer to the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (166).
4. General rule. A genuine job offer can be checked, involves a proper contract, does not need secrecy, and never requires you to hand over your documents.

Practice