By Jamie Bergin

People with disabilities having to pay carers to carry them within health facilities. + Local leaders selecting undeserving service users for social protection support, at the expense of poor families who need it. + Officials colluding to put non-existent “ghost teachers” on the books of rural schools, to siphon off already scarce resources. + Women students being coerced into giving sexual favours to pass the next class, with no repercussions for the perpetrator. marginalised communities, Transparency International’s national chapters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Madagascar, Rwanda and Zimbabwe conducted corruption risk assessments in these sectors as part of the Inclusive Service Delivery for Africa project. Each chapter selected and studied different functions within the two sectors, largely with an eye to services and operational areas that most impact women, girls and groups at risk of discrimination. What do all these examples have in common? The answer is an abuse of power for private gain, that is exclusionary of marginalised groups and deprives them of education and health care they are entitled to. Corruption undermines the equal access to quality education and health services. The result is the failure of states to uphold fundamental rights and meet basic needs – with women, girls and groups at risk of discrimination shouldering the impacts most severely. Corrupt practices and associated abuses of power deprive millions of people of the opportunities that well-functioning education and health institutions can provide. While this is clearly a human rights issue at the individual level, the aggregate impact on socio-economic development can be ruinous for societies straining to escape the traps of poverty. At the same time, corruption widens the equality gap faced by marginalised groups, and aggravates social exclusion. To better understand how in practice corruption obstructs access to health care and education for These national-level findings revealed stark common trends, pointing to a multitude of corruption risks occurring across the entire service delivery cycle.   

Berlin: Transparency International, 2024. 62p

By O’Mochain, Robert and Ueno, Yuki

Bringing together two voices, practice and theory, in a collaboration that emerges from lived experience and structured reflection upon that experience, O’Mochain and Ueno show how entrenched discursive forces exert immense influence in Japanese society and how they might be most effectively challenged. With a psychosocial framework that draws insights from feminism, sociology, international studies, and political psychology, the authors pinpoint the motivations of the nativist right and reflect on the change of conditions that is necessary to end cultures of impunity for perpetrators of sexual abuse in Japan. Evaluating the value of the #MeToo model of activism, the authors offer insights that will encourage victims to come out of the shadows, pursue justice, and help transform Japan’s sense of identity both at home and abroad. Ueno, a female Japanese educator and O’Mochain, a non-Japanese male academic, examine the nature of sexual abuse problems both in educational contexts and in society at large through the use of surveys, interviews, and engagement with an eclectic range of academic literature. They identify the groups within society who offer the least support for women who pursue justice against perpetrators of sexual abuse. They also ask if far-right ideological extremists are fixated with proving that so called “comfort women” are higaisha-buru or “fake victims.” Japan would have much to gain on the international stage were it to fully acknowledge historical crimes of sexual violence, yet it continues to refuse to do so. O’Mochain and Ueno shed light on this puzzling refusal through recourse to the concepts of ‘international status anxiety’ and ‘male hysteria.’ An insightful read for scholars of Japanese society, especially those concerned about its treatment of women.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023.