Psychological Impacts of Campus Sextortion on Female Undergraduates: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Abstract

Nigerian higher education institutions (HEIs) have featured widely in media and academic literature as places where sextortion (sexual extortion) is commonplace. In many HEIs, male lecturers demand sex from their female students and in some cases, the former threaten the latter with fail when the latter rejects the sexual advances. This act has enormous psychological impacts on the victims. This current study explored such impacts on the victims selected from different HEIs in the southeastern part of Nigeria. Both primary and secondary data were utilised. A total of 15 female graduates and undergraduates from 8 HEIs participated in semi-structured interviews. All the participants were real victims of sextortion perpetrated by male lecturers in their institutions. Secondary data came from the personal accounts of 4 female victims whose accounts were published in the media. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyse all the data. Three themes were developed, reflecting the victims' common psychological impacts. The themes are “living in fear”, “feeling distressed” and “distrust of men”. The first theme shows how the victims lived in fear of their lecturers’ planned decisions after refusing the lecturers’ sexual advances or demands. In the second theme, the participants felt distressed and experienced emotional reactions, including anxiety, depression, crying, and sleepless nights. The last theme shows how the victims developed distrust for men and some refused to approach men for help for fear of sexual harassment following their experiences. Recommendations were made on how to address this social problem.

Keywords: sextortion, sexual harassment, psychological impacts, lecturer, female students, academic, higher education institutions

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/16-5-15

Publication date: May 30^th 2025