“I have this Wedding Ring in my Bag all the Time”: How Female Students fake their Marital Status to evade Campus Sextortion

Abstract

Sextortion has remained a serious menace in many Nigerian higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly the public ones. In these institutions, male lecturers target female students for sexual extortion and often threaten the students with fail should they reject the sexual advances. Due to the huge psychological and academic impacts of this sexual corruption on the victims, many victims and potential victims have come up with different tactics to evade the sexually extortionist behaviour. This current study explored how students dodged sextortion in HEIs in the southeastern part of Nigeria. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 female undergraduates and graduates selected from five universities and two polytechnics. Thematic analysis was conducted and six themes were developed from the research data, which captured the recurrent patterns in the participants’ efforts to evade sextortion. The themes are as follows: (i) Avoiding personal contacts; (ii) Pretending to be married; (iii) Studying hard ahead of exams; (iv) Getting loved ones involved; (v) Sorting with cash; and (vi) Arranging sting operations and electronic recording. Each of these themes captures a particular tactic used by a group of victims and potential victims of sextortion to prevent the act or escape it after already being targeted. Recommendations were made on how to address sextortion in the HEIs where this occurs.

Keywords: sextortion, sexual harassment, higher education institution, female students, lecturers.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/16-7-08

Publication date: July 30^th 2025