The unit of analysis in the Sexual Corruption Legal Mapping Database is a jurisdiction. A jurisdiction refers to a distinct legal system or legal area assessed in the mapping. In many cases, a jurisdiction corresponds to a single country. However, in some cases, multiple jurisdictions exist within the same country.
The data was collected using a standardised questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed by the researchers at the Uppsala University Research Environment on Sexual Corruption (UU-RESC) in collaboration with the Sexual Corruption Legal Taskforce of the Gender, Inclusion and Corruption Working Group of the Global Civil Society Coalition for the UNCAC.
The questionnaire was circulated through the International Lawyers Project and distributed to legal professionals in jurisdictions where the global law firm Hogan Lovells Cadwalader has offices or partners. The Coalition for the UNCAC then received one response per jurisdiction from Hogan Lovells Cadwalader. As of 22 October 2026, responses have been collected from 44 jurisdictions in 38 countries.
The initial assessments, including determinations of the relevance and applicability of both specific legislation on sexual corruption and other legislative provisions, were conducted by the lawyers in each jurisdiction. Their analysis considered not only the legal texts but also their practical application and interpretation within national legal systems.
These responses were subsequently cleaned and coded by researchers at UU-RESC. The criteria for coding a legislative provision as specifically covering sexual corruption were based on the following definition of sexual corruption.
Sexual corruption occurs when a person abuses their entrusted authority to condition a service or benefit connected to that authority on a sexual act.
Sexual corruption thus includes three components:
1. Abuse of authority: Power is abused by someone with entrusted authority for
sexual gain.
2. Quid pro quo (this for that): A service or benefit connected to the entrusted
authority is conditioned on a sexual act.
3. Sex as a currency: The currency of the transaction is a sexual act.
(Adapted from: Bjarnegård, E., Calvo, D., Eldén, Å., Jonsson, S., Lundgren, S. 2024. Sex instead of money:
Conceptualizing sexual corruption. Governance, 37(4), pp. 1349–1367.)
This definition guided the evaluation of each legal provision during the data collection and coding process. All identified relevant legal provisions were assessed against this definition to determine whether they covered all three elements.
If the legal experts confirmed that a jurisdiction has a legal provision that explicitly includes all three components, that jurisdiction was coded as having “specific legislative provision”. If a jurisdiction has a legal provision that covers only one or two of the three components, whether individually or in combination with other provisions, it is coded as having “other applicable provision” (i.e., provisions that may be used to prosecute sexual corruption even if they do not cover all three elements of the definition). When relevant, specific cases involving prosecution or investigation were also analysed.
Based on the database, a dataset was created to facilitate researchers’ access to the information. The dataset can be downloaded as an Excel file. An accompanying codebook provides operational definitions of variables and coding rules. Researchers should consult the codebook to understand the variables, interpret the coding, and analyse the data.
