Extortion is one of the most pervasive criminal practices around the world. It has been a long-standing strategy and business model deployed by many organized criminal groups, and continues to violate human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals worldwide.
The extortion economy is a tool for terror and control that is used in legal and illicit markets alike. However, given the often insurmountable legal challenges to tackle it – or the outright absence of legislation in certain countries to deal with extortion – the Resilience Fellowship in 2021 set out to support community-level responses to extortion and to seek innovative ways of bolstering resilience to extortion among at-risk communities.
From Guatemala to Indonesia, ten Fellows were selected for their projects, which dealt with systemic issues that have come to normalize extortion in their respective communities. Under-reporting, lack of trust in authorities, marginalization of victims, and blurred distinctions between perpetrators and victims all posed various kinds of challenges, which they set out to address under the Fellowship, an initiative of the Resilience Fund.
This multimedia report briefly summarizes each of the Fellows’ projects and what they managed to achieve with their initiatives in ten communities around the world, each facing specific structural and organized crime challenges.
Through a series of dialogues, the Fellows also collaborated on a joint statement highlighting extortion ecosystems and their impact on these communities.
Ponelo Kalonga | Women’s rights activist | Zomba, Malawi
Ponelo’s project involved looking at how young people, especially women in Zomba, a town in southern Malawi, are extorted, or ‘sextorted’, to keep their jobs. Malawi does not have specific laws that can prosecute extortion, and Ponelo, therefore, identified that her campaign to break the culture of silence around extortion was particularly relevant to Malawian society by raising the profile of this form of organized crime as a threat to Malawians.
She worked with victims and local youth support groups to expand her reach and encourage them to report cases of extortion, which has become ‘normalized’ in parts of Malawi. She reached out to law enforcement agents and journalists in her campaign to sensitize them on how extortion originates and takes hold in Malawian communities.
By the end of her fellowship, Ponelo had encouraged five victims to come forward to share their experiences. She will be speaking about her work at the World Youth Forum 2022 in Egypt and the Future Leaders Model United Nations in Turkey.
Vandalark Patricks | Human rights defender | Monrovia, Liberia
Vandalark’s approach to challenging extortion in his community involved working with perpetrators, who are also victims of socio-economic oppression themselves. Many are child soldiers of the Liberian civil war – the Zogos are the underclass and stigmatized in Liberian society. Vandalark’s team counselled and rehabilitated seven members of the Zogos while simultaneously running an advocacy campaign to help combat extortion in Liberia. Another component of his project was aimed at building trust between law enforcement authorities and civil society.
Nukila Evanty | Indigenous, women and environmental rights activist | Riau Province, Indonesia
The growth of the palm oil industry in Indonesia has come at enormous cost and suffering to many indigenous people. Nukila’s project looked at how large companies would deploy force and threaten indigenous communities to give up their land for palm oil plantations. She activated a mechanism to allow people to report on such corporate extortion, trained eight members of the community how to use it, increased their awareness of the legal framework and built a coalition with several civil society organizations working on issues such as environmental protection and human rights.
Nukila continues to leverage the collective strength of this coalition to lobby against land extortion in Riau’s indigenous communities. She has been invited to be part of an Indonesian parliamentary panel that will regulate the palm oil industry.
Milos Katic | Financial forensics expert | Novi Sad, Serbia
Milos implemented a nationwide advocacy campaign in Serbia to help counter extortion, a concept that is largely recognized as racketeering in his country. With the support of a lawyer, Milos approached judicial institutions and interviewed victims to identify gaps in accessing justice and maintaining records. He developed educational videos for the Serbian public and worked with journalists to increase their understanding of the crime of extortion.
Vania Pigeonutt | Investigative journalist | Guerrero, Mexico
Vania made use of her journalism skills to help small businesses and their families in Guerrero state, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Her goal was to develop effective complaint mechanisms for victims of extortion by engaging affected communities in Acapulco, Chilpancingo and Ciudad Altamirano. Her findings have been shared in many public platforms, including webinars, podcasts, workshops and news media. Vania continues to support local businesses by helping them access justice and by warning the wider public of the extortion threat.
Valeria Cerpa | Architect and urban planner | Arequipa, Peru
Valeria is an urban planner and data analyst. Her family have been victims of extortion, which spurred her interest in this criminal economy. Valeria researched forms of extortion prevalent in Latin America, and focused on the city of Arequipa in Peru. She then developed a knowledge access digital portal that contains geo-localized crime data, including on extortion, in Peru. Valeria aims to use the data to better plan urban development initiatives and connect like-minded organizations, such as Lima Como Vamos and Data Science Research.
DK | Photojournalist | Guatemala City, Guatemala
DK addressed the lack of psychological support faced by many victims of extortion. The fellowship was an opportunity for him to study the trauma engendered by extortion and to consider potential non-orthodox forms of therapy, such as psychodrama, that might be applied to help victims. DK used as a sample the widows of public transport drivers who had been direct victims of extortion. In parallel, he has been producing a multi-perspective documentary covering the extortion ecosystem and its impact in Guatemala, as told by victims, government members and perpetrators.
Zia-ur-Rehman | Investigative journalist | Peshawar and Karachi, Pakistan
Using his investigative journalism experience and skills, Zia studied and reported on the extent of extortion that traders in Peshawar have been facing from across the border in Afghanistan. During his project, he encountered deep-seated fear among victims, especially local traders, and their complete lack of trust in authorities to report on this crime. Zia’s stories have been published in local and national media in Pakistan.
Juvénal Twaibu Bilongwe | Lawyer and activist | Uvira, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Juvénal focused on community mobilization in the Uvira region of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His project leveraged the media to lobby the authorities to take effective action against extortion in order to bring about positive change in perpetrators and the communities they predate. Juvénal, who has extensive experience defending and protecting human rights, has put in place a series of trainings with communities so that they can better understand how to claim their rights. He also involved local human rights defenders and civil society actors to support these communities in the fight against extortion.
Riana Raymonde Randrianarisoa |Investigative journalist | Antananarivo, Madagascar
Riana's project in the Betroka district of Madagascar aimed to support all actors in the fight against extortion. Trained as a journalist, Riana produced a series of key tools, including a guide to understanding extortion and how to combat it, and a short advocacy video to defend the interests of victims and their social reconstruction. She conducted workshops with various actors, including journalists, community members and local authorities, and produced an investigative documentary to denounce malpractices and mitigate the negative impact of extortion in the daily life of local populations.
We need action to end extortion now
Extortion oppresses and damages communities the world over.
People live in fear because of threats to their lives or livelihoods, or suffer damage to and destruction of their property, to their reputation or their way of life. There has been too little action from the authorities to end extortion, to address its causes and to help the many people who suffer because of it.
Lack of effective action has worsened people’s suffering – physically, psychologically and economically. Wider harms in the community include forced evictions, land-grabbing and loss of ancestral lands. Among the most vulnerable are indigenous people, the youth and minorities.
Failure on the part of government to take action means many people accept extortion as just another obstacle they face as part of their lives, and not the crime that it is. People targeted by extortionists have a right to get help without fear. Ultimately, they have a right to justice.
As a group of professionals dedicated to ending extortion, we call on the authorities at all levels and in all spheres of government, in all countries and at the multilateral level, to do more to end this crime. These are our urgent requests:
- Conduct research to improve the evidence base. Governments must carry out and support research to identify the root causes of extortion and organized crime in communities and take action to address them. Legislation and law enforcement can have little impact if these underlying problems are ignored. Research can also help to identify where resources are most needed to deal with organized crime and extortion.
- Improve law enforcement. The government must improve law enforcement and the justice system. Laws against extortion are of little use if they are not implemented and enforced. The authorities can take such action through coalitions and partnerships with communities where extortion causes fear and harm.
- Support, don’t victimize. Complainants are already victims of a crime, and should never be further victimized by the criminal investigation process when they turn to the authorities for help. Given that the crime of extortion can be associated with forced disappearances, homicide, femicide and kidnapping, it is necessary that the consequences be thoroughly investigated, and for the victims to be given comprehensive support, including psychological assistance where needed.
- Participation of youth. Youth outreach is another important area where action is needed, to address the problems facing those who may be vulnerable to extortion and to being drawn into such criminal activities themselves. One effective step would be for academic institutions to facilitate and encourage community service by students, including peer-counselling and awareness campaigns, to discourage early stages of criminal activities and extortion involving young people.
- End impunity. People should have easily accessible means for reporting extortion as part of a process that leads to thorough, efficient investigation of the crime. Complaints from the community must be followed up and prosecuted even when the crimes have been committed by officials, companies, political parties or others in positions of power. Victims have a right to justice by following these processes.
- Improve cross-border cooperation. Governments should develop strategies and mechanisms for working together to combat cross-border extortion, including relevant cooperation on intelligence and law enforcement to help ensure justice and address impunity.
- Build networks of trust. Efforts to end extortion can benefit substantially from social cohesion and this should be encouraged by building trust. Citizens play a significant role in the protection of their communities, but cohesion between communities and the authorities demands mutual trust. Citizens must be able to rely on the will and efforts of local authorities and law enforcement to bring perpetrators to justice and to reduce extortion.
- Do justice. We demand justice for the victims of extortion. Perpetrators must be brought to justice and held to account.
It is essential for the authorities to act immediately to address these demands, so that our communities can be respected.
Effective action against organized crime and extortion depends on the commitment and involvement of citizens, activists and civil society organizations, as well as policymakers, government and law enforcement. Campaigners and civic organizations have highlighted these issues and been working to give a voice to those who suffer most, but governments have not done nearly enough.
Now is the time for the authorities to play their part too.
Issued by the 2021 Resilience Fellows of The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime:
- Nukila Evanty, Women Working Group, Indonesia
- Ponelo Kalonga, Save the Village Youth Foundation, Malawi
- Vania Pigeonutt, journalist, Mexico
- Vandalark Patricks, Campaigners for Change International, Liberia
- Miloš Katić, Vojvodina Investigative and Analytical Centre (VOICE), Serbia
- Zia Ur Rehman, journalist and researcher, Pakistan
- Riana Raymonde Randrianarisoa, Madagascar Network of Investigative Journalists, Madagascar
- Juvénal Twaibu Bilongwe, Independent Centre for Strategic Research and Studies, Democratic Republic of Congo
- DK, journalist, Guatemala
- Valeria Cerpa, architect, Peru
Background
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) is an independent civil-society organization, comprising a network of more than 500 independent global and regional experts working on human rights, democracy, governance and development issues. Network members include people prominent in law enforcement, governance and development working on strategies and responses to organized crime.
GI-TOC’s flagship grant-making Resilience Fund supports civil society and communities working to counter the impacts of criminal governance and violence across the world.
The Resilience Fellowship is part of the Resilience Fund’s efforts to encourage and build resilience in communities harmed or threatened by criminal governance. The 2021 Fellows have been developing initiatives in various locations to counter extortion by documenting its causes and effects, and providing a voice to those who are affected.