New company aims to prevent corruption involving sex as currency

Sexual corruption is an old phenomenon but a relatively new concept and field of research. It is abuse of power in which sexual favours are required in exchange for, e.g., grades, employment or border crossing. Although sexual corruption takes place all over the world and in all sectors, tools to understand and address it are often lacking. Researchers Elin Bjarnegård, Åsa Eldén, Silje Lundgren and Dolores Calvo want to change this.

“Sexual corruption often falls through the cracks. Neither anti-corruption experts nor gender equality experts have the relevant tools to deal with this form of corruption, which means the problem persists,” says Åsa Eldén.

A company backed by world-leading research

The team has been doing research on sexual corruption since 2019 and has founded the world-leading research environment led by Elin Bjarnegård, Professor of Political Science at Uppsala University.

By developing concepts, methods and understanding of sexual corruption and collaborating with both Swedish and international actors, such as Transparency International and the UNCAC Coalition (United Nations Convention against Corruption), they have laid the foundation for BLEC – a company that aims to translate research into practical change.

“Our research started very much in practice, in dialogue with practitioners. So now we are developing the research track through the research environment, but also linking back to practice through BLEC,” explains Dolores Calvo.

For BLEC, the focus is on both calling attention to the problem and contributing with concrete tools for change – all anchored in current research.

“I see my main role at BLEC as ensuring that our work is guided by the research front, drawing on my experience leading research in the field,” says Elin Bjarnegård.

Supplementing anti-corruption work

With the support of advice, mentoring and funding from UU Innovation, BLEC has now started to take shape as a company, and has already gained its first clients, both Swedish and international. The products will be customised for each client, but can range from inspirational lectures, workshops and training, to mapping, action plans and evaluation.

The ambition is clear: to prevent a harmful and often invisible form of corruption.

“We can strengthen anti-corruption work in organisations and companies. By also including sexual corruption, we add the piece of the puzzle that is often missing for thorough anti-corruption work,” says Silje Lundgren.

Make haste slowly

At the same time, the researchers are aware of the risks of moving too quickly when putting the research into practice, even though they know that the need for knowledge and training is huge. Sexual corruption is often sensitive. Many victims do not see themselves as victims, and are sometimes considered complicit. There is often no legislation to protect victims, which makes it almost impossible to report and call attention to sexual corruption.

“We must first understand what we are measuring, what we are addressing and what we are preventing. If not, there is a risk of doing more harm than good. That is why we want to help shape how organisations work with this issue. It is a responsibility to ensure that we do not get things wrong,” says Elin Bjarnegård.

The aim is to shift the focus from the individual to the structure, from blame to abuse of power.

“We want to help create better organisations. Working preventively to combat sexual corruption is a way of showing good leadership. It is a matter of transparency, integrity and a sustainable organisational culture,” says Silje Lundgren.

From the Fågelsången café by way of Frankfurt to Berlin

What happened with that field trip that was postponed and the brainstorm over coffee at café Fågelsången? It resulted in a new plan for data collection and train trips across Europe that set the whole idea of BLEC in motion.

“We had the opportunity to test our methods in workshops with several international organisations. The response we received showed that there was a huge appetite for knowledge, but the main impression was that we had developed an incredibly good educational tool to quickly make organisations aware of what sexual corruption is and what they can do about it,” says Åsa Eldén.

Elin Bjarnegård remembers that it was while travelling by train between Frankfurt and Berlin that the question of how to take things further was raised.

“There is so much more that could be done beyond research dissemination and outreach, but how the heck do we do this as researchers? The train ride gave us the time to sit down and have a dialogue, and at the same time start looking for information. That’s when we found UU Innovation.”

The rest is history. Now the team is focusing on the future – both in terms of continued research and a business enterprise that will enable the results to have a greater impact on society.

Sara Gredemark