On Thursday, TII launched the 2020 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB), which observes public opinion on corruption practices in Asia from March 2019 to September 2020, involving 20,000 respondents from 17 countries.

In Indonesia, the survey involved 1,000 respondents from 28 provinces, with data collected between June 15 and July 24.

The results found that the level of bribery for public services in Indonesia was the third-highest in Asia, after India and Cambodia. The level was at 30 percent, falling insignificantly from 32 percent since the latest GCB in 2017.

Three in 10 Indonesians admitted to having paid bribes when accessing public services. The majority said they did it simply as a token of gratitude, while others said they were asked to pay a fee or being offered better access.

“The culture of giving gifts, the culture of gratification, is considered normal and is made natural by many Indonesians,” TII researcher Alvin Nicola said on Thursday.

The survey found that such bribery occurred mostly in police services, accounting for 41 percent, above the average in Asia of 23 percent. Indonesia was in fourth place – after Taiwan, Thailand and India – in terms of bribery for police services.

“The rates of bribery for police, civil registration and education services have increased since 2017, while the rates of bribery for electricity, water and health services have decreased, although insignificantly,” Nicola said.

Young people aged 18 to 24 were the main actors in bribery cases for public services, accounting for 45 percent, followed by those aged 25 to 34 with 30 percent.

The survey also found that more than 80 percent of respondents considered personal connections important to get better quality public services.

One in two respondents had used a personal connection to access public services in the past year. Respondents mostly used personal connections for licensing and identity document processing services.

Another main point the survey found was the practice of sextortion, meaning the abuse of power for sexual gain, often occurring in exchange for public services.

The survey found that Indonesia had the highest rate of sextortion in Asia, followed by Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Respondents who claimed they had experienced sextortion said it had happened one to two times. More than half of the victims were women.

Although sextortion was a new indicator in the 2020 GCB, Indonesia could trace such practices back as early as 2013, when former judge Setyabudi Tejocahyono had allegedly received “sexual gratification” from businessman Toto Hutagalung in a corruption case pertaining to the management of social aid.

In September, a woman was allegedly extorted and sexually harassed by a medical worker while undergoing a rapid COVID-19 test at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.

Read also: Soekarno-Hatta Police receive report of sexual harassment during COVID-19 test

“We urge the government to recognize the practice of sextortion as part of corruption in Indonesia because there are stories behind this data,” Nicola said.

The government must acknowledge sextortion as a human cost of corruption and strengthen studies on this issue, he added.

TII secretary-general Danang Widoyoko said that even though the police was no longer the most corrupt institution according to public perception, bribery rates in the institution were the highest compared to other public service providers.

“The National Police chief must note that the correction of such practices is still awaited. The practice of bribery for public services in the police can be suppressed,” Danang said.

Danang regretted that extortion practices were only associated with financial incidents, and that sextortion cases were more often only recorded as sexual violence cases. “We need to redefine the terms related to extortion.”

Rumadi Ahmad, Deputy V chief expert of the Presidential Chief of Staff, admitted that the country was still trying its best to manage corruption within the government.

“I think it is necessary to raise the issue of corruption in the sexual violence bill [RUU PKS], so that the two topics can be discussed together,” he said.

Rumadi said he believed the government was on the right track because the level of bribery for public services had dropped since 2016.

He said Presidential Decree No. 87/2016, which stipulates the formation of a special task force to eradicate illegal levies, showed the President’s seriousness in eradicating such acts of corruption.

As of Aug. 31, he said, the special task force had received 37,579 reports from the public to related to illegal levies, with central government agencies reporting the most including the Home Affairs Ministry, the Education and Culture Ministry, the National Police, the Transportation Ministry and the Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry.