A/HRC/40/59 underlying governance failures conducive to both forms of abuse. In the same vein, blanket or selective crackdowns on petty corruption that are not accompanied by appropriate system-level reform, including relevant socioeconomic measures, tend to severely affect poor, marginalized and disadvantaged communities without adequately addressing the root causes of either corruption or torture and ill-treatment. 26. Finally, whereas the present report focuses specifically on the relation between torture or ill-treatment and acts of corruption, the Special Rapporteur is also seriously concerned at reports that, in some contexts, torture and ill-treatment have even been employed on the pretext of fighting corruption, most notably through coercive interrogation, incommunicado detention or prolonged solitary confinement of purported corruption suspects, who often also are political opponents, human rights defenders and other critical voices. It is therefore vital to ensure, through regulation, prevention and independent oversight, that anti-corruption narratives are not abused to pursue – and do not purport to legitimize – inherently unlawful policies and practices that are incompatible with the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment, and with human rights more generally. 10 C. Predominant patterns of causal interaction 27. Corruption and torture or ill-treatment can interact in a variety of different contextspecific ways, each of which may require a tailored set of measures in terms of prevention, accountability and redress. Based on broad stakeholder consultations and on the observations made in the course of his own work, the Special Rapporteur proposes to distinguish six predominant patterns of interaction between corruption and torture or illtreatment. This categorization does not aim to be comprehensive or free from overlaps, or indeed to exhaust the ways in which such interactions could or should be described for a variety of purposes. Rather, it aims to provide an analytical framework based on distinct degrees of causal proximity between corruption and torture or ill-treatment and, in doing so, to facilitate the identification of pattern-specific measures for the prevention and eradication of torture and ill-treatment in environments affected by corruption, in line with the corresponding obligations reflected in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Part I), as well as the United Nations Convention against Corruption (chap. II). Demanding “undue advantages” that per se amount to torture or ill-treatment 1. 28. Without any doubt, the closest interaction between corruption and torture or illtreatment occurs in circumstances in which the undue advantage constitutive of corruption amounts per se to torture or ill-treatment. For example, when a person is forced to engage in a sexual act in return for the performance of an official duty, such “undue advantage” would per se constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and, in some circumstances, may even amount to torture. The same applies when State agents render protection from other forms of torture or ill-treatment conditional on the provision of undue advantages in the form of sexual acts. In practice, this type of overlap between corruption and sexual violence most frequently, but not exclusively, affects socioeconomically marginalized women and children, who may be dependent on the people and systems that victimize them, including in contexts such as the sex industry, irregular migration, or any form of deprivation of liberty or institutionalization. 11 Apart from sexual acts, undue advantages which may per se amount to torture or ill-treatment can include the trafficking of persons, the provision of forced labour, or similar situations of cruel, inhuman or degrading exploitation. 10 11 8 See International Council on Human Rights Policy and Transparency International, Integrating Human Rights in the Anti-Corruption Agenda: Challenges, Possibilities and Opportunities (Geneva, 2010). Naomi Hossain, Celestine Nyamu Musembi and Jessica Hughes, Corruption, Accountability and Gender: Understanding the Connections (United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), 2010), p. 5.