said, her words tumbling out in a rush on the phone. “Even when I’m a mother someday, there will always be someone who’s seeing those pictures for the first time and judging my character,” A. said she understood the desire some women had to forget about the past and move on with their lives in a different country. “Many who had left the country because of the episode just wanted to forget about the whole thing. She wanted to help them, but none of the women she found wanted anything to do with her. And she also began trying to contact the other young women on the Google Drive. “There were pictures and information about of all of them - not just nudes, but also clothed selfies, profile pictures, display images all taken off their social media,” A. Also on the Drive were images of nearly 5,000 women and girls arranged alphabetically, under their real names. In 2014, she found her photographs on the Google Drive, in a folder disguised as notes from a professor’s class. said she fought a long and lonely battle against the nameless, faceless people who would keep sharing “the link” online. We did not want anyone to make her feel that she was to be blamed and we never will, it was and is an act of violation against her.”ĭespite this, A. “ to let her know that we stand by her and will protect her. “A few people close to us told us out of concern,” the relative said, adding that the family’s first response was to support A. She was raised in a liberal environment by a supportive family, but A.’s story could’ve ended in devastation, as other stories where teenagers are sexually abused on the internet frequently do.Ī relative who did not wish to be identified told BuzzFeed News that A.’s family first learned about the photographs from an outside source. 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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