Strangers hunted down her social media accounts and contact details, blackmailing her, threatening to expose her to her family, or worse, with rape and murder. She sank deeper into depression and became suicidal, finally dropping out of school. was bullied at school and shunned by friends. Other times, it was a downloadable Dropbox folder.Īs the photographs circulated online, A. Sometimes “the link” appeared as a fake social media profile, a stranger with her face and body posing as a young woman on Facebook or Instagram. She has never been able to exorcise “the link” - as she and her family and friends have come to refer to the images - from the internet. tells the story of her leaked photographs the way someone would describe a haunting. had not spoken to him for over a year when the photos were leaked.Ī. The friend to whom she’d sent the photographs was, she said, “ancient history.” A. “A friend told me that a group of boys was discussing my pictures and that there was a link where they could be downloaded by anyone,” she said over the phone from Karachi, the most populous city in Pakistan. The next year, in 2012, she learned that they had been leaked online. was 16 when she sent photographs of herself to a male friend over WhatsApp. What followed over the course of several interviews revealed the crossroads at which women find themselves when they want to “do the right thing” but, for the sake of their families and their own safety, must be cautioned against being too brave.Ī. for this story, she was determined to identify herself and reclaim her narrative in all its details. The bigger battle, she realized, was coming out of hiding herself.

In Pakistani society - as she learned the hard way - people would lose all sympathy for her as soon as they heard the words “boyfriend” or “nude photographs.” Through the course of our conversations, A., now 24, was reluctant even to refer to her photographs as nudes. wanted to become one of the only Pakistani women to speak openly about her nudes being leaked online, but at the request of her family due to concerns over her safety, she has reluctantly chosen to remain anonymous. Instead of being fearful, she wanted to reach out to other women affected by image-based sexual abuse.Ī. said discovering her nude photos drove her in the opposite direction.

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