Intimate image abuse is a crisis in the UK – with a fortyfold increase in calls to this service since it opened in 2015. Thankfully, there are effective ways to help those being victimised
By midday, Jessica has dealt with five calls from highly distressed young women in their 20s, all close to tears or crying at the start of the conversations. She absorbs their alarm calmly, prompting them with questions, making sympathetic noises into her headset as she digests the situation. “Are these images sexual in nature?” she asks the last woman she speaks to before lunch. “Do you want to tell me a bit about what happened?” She begins compiling a tidy set of bullet points in ballpoint pen. “It’s all right. Take your time.”
Jessica is sitting on a bank of desks with three other women, responding to calls to the Revenge Porn Helpline. For the past decade, the helpline has been offering advice to callers whose partners or exes have uploaded nude images or footage of them without their consent. “It’s a shocking time for you. I’m so sorry to hear what happened,” she says, as the caller explains that, just a few hours earlier, an ex-partner messaged her to tell her he had decided to post videos of them having sex on the OnlyFans website.
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Intimate image abuse is a crisis in the UK – with a fortyfold increase in calls to this service since it opened in 2015. Thankfully, there are effective ways to help those being victimised
By midday, Jessica has dealt with five calls from highly distressed young women in their 20s, all close to tears or crying at the start of the conversations. She absorbs their alarm calmly, prompting them with questions, making sympathetic noises into her headset as she digests the situation. “Are these images sexual in nature?” she asks the last woman she speaks to before lunch. “Do you want to tell me a bit about what happened?” She begins compiling a tidy set of bullet points in ballpoint pen. “It’s all right. Take your time.”
Jessica is sitting on a bank of desks with three other women, responding to calls to the Revenge Porn Helpline. For the past decade, the helpline has been offering advice to callers whose partners or exes have uploaded nude images or footage of them without their consent. “It’s a shocking time for you. I’m so sorry to hear what happened,” she says, as the caller explains that, just a few hours earlier, an ex-partner messaged her to tell her he had decided to post videos of them having sex on the OnlyFans website. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian