Take action!

So-called 'ethical' funds need to demonstrate their point of difference from other super funds.

Ask your super fund where it stands on shopping centre companies that host Honey Birdette's porn-themed ads. Points you may wish to make:

• Unwanted exposure to sexualised imagery is a form of sexual harassment and a violation of human rights
• Exposure to objectifying imagery is linked to tolerance of violence against women and a dimished view of women’s worth and humanity
• Women feel unsafe in places where pornified imagery is displayed
• Boys absorb harmful attitudes from this imagery

Let us know how your fund responds.

I have been a client of Australian Ethical for a number of years now. I made the conscious choice to switch super funds in an effort to invest more responsibly. Their website says "We invest in companies to have a positive impact on the planet, people and animals. We agitate for change and that means taking a stance." This sounded great and seemed aligned to my values.

Until I realised that Australian Ethical invested in property. And this included Lendlease Group and Stockland who facilitate Honey Birdette's harmful hyper-sexualised advertising. The very advertising I have been campaigning against for years. And just so we are clear this is the type of advertising that Honey Birdette are pushing in the public domain to our kids. This is what Lendlease Group and Stockland are facilitating. This is what Australian Ethical are investing in. This is what my superannuation is funding. 

Australian Ethical replied:

"We agree the advertising from Honey Birdette is concerning. They have breached the Australian Association of National Advertisers Code of Ethics 30 times since 2012 & shown general disregard toward compliance with the Code."

"We are engaging with Lendlease & Stocklands asking them to require Honey Birdette to comply with the Code for all advertising within their shopping centres."

"We invest in Lendlease because they develop & manage a range of properties including schools & hospitals & are considered a sector leader in sustainability. They’re also one of the few companies in the industry to target large scale urban regeneration projects."

"Like all companies Lendlease has negative impacts which we take into account in our ethics assessment. But not every negative will mean a company is automatically ruled out for investment & in some cases we can have more of an impact engaging with them."

"We exclude over 60% of the ASX top 200 companies. The word ethical doesn't mean every company we invest in is perfect (in our experience perfect companies are rare). We look at the positives and negatives to assess if a company is, overall, aligned with our Ethical Charter."

KFC stereotypes women - and young boys - in new TV ad

1. According to Fox News Facebook stated “Any content that endangers or exploits children is unthinkable and has no place on Instagram. We have policies that prohibit this type of content, and we use proactive technology to find and remove content that poses a risk to children. We’re constantly working on more ways to help prevent this behaviour on our platform.”

But we've found countless comments that have been up on underage girls' photos for up to a year. How is this using "proactive technology"? We've also reported hundreds of comments, many of which have taken weeks to get actioned and often the reply from Instagram is that they do not violate community guidelines. 

These comments here are from 27 weeks ago and 14 weeks ago. Also a comment regarding a topless shoot on a child's picture apparently did not violate Instagram's community guidelines:

Here's an example of comments from a man describing his desire to sexually assault a girl which apparently do not violate Instagram's community guidelines. And another example of a comment that had been up for 54 weeks:

This comment describing the sexual assault of and underage girl had been up for 38 weeks when we found it:

Here is a sample of 100+ comments we found on Instagram on pictures of underage girls:

1. Sexy girl

2. Mmm sexy

3. Delicious

4. Snack

5. Hot little tidbit

6. I can make you scream daddy

7. You can sit down on my legs so that I can get hard

8. Eggplant/squirt emojis signifying penis/sex abuse/masturbation/ejaculation

9. Wow I’d love to spread those legs

10. Cute budding breasts

11. Yummy candy my favourite dessert + emojis signifying penis/sex abuse/masturbation/ejaculation

12. Wanna jump on top of you laying like this

13. I wanna slide in that so bad

14. Beautiful ass out from water

15. Love the pics of you in your cut lil panties. I hope you post more like this.

16. Sit on my face like that

17. Hello I am a young model scout and i am looking for a designer model. If you are interested write me pm

18. Cooling off that hot ass? Nice

19. I wish i could see more of you - send me a picture

20. Sexy pussy

21. So hot n sexy body

22. I want to eat your everything if you don’t mind are you ready

23. Wow body and boobs and facking nice 

24. Such kissable full lips

25. Nice pussy

26. What is your snapchat name

27. Yummmm

28. Let me have porn sex for you

29. Guess you like opening your legs

30. Ooh la la + emojis signifying penis/sex abuse/masturbation/ejaculation

31. Cute little tooshy

32. Why did you have to cut off the best part of the pics. Still so sexy tho. Call me

33. You are so dam yummy babe. When u going to pose in Victoria Secret outfits next

34. Emojis signifying 'horny', penis/sex abuse/masturbation/ejaculation

35. Uff so delicious

36. I want lick

37. Ahhhhh + emojis signifying penis/sex abuse/masturbation/ejaculation

38. Stop cover up your body

39. Imagine what am doing..10 inches n am cumming imaginit

40. Hot wet pants

41. I find it amazingly convenient that a specific area is wet

42. Having that beautiful pair of legs on my shoulders and putting my penis in that beautiful ass

43. Sweet camel toe; young camel toe; awesome lips, very edible and pokable

44. I would love to fuck you SO HARD

45. Fucking cutie be mine

46. Super sexy for such a little girl

47. You have the most ridiculously perfect sweet tender ass cheeks in the world.

48. I want you

49. That is so hot. You just made me …

50. Mmm yummy

51. Beautiful. Super cute in bare feet 

52. Yes now stay like that – rape emojis

53. Double penetration

54. Looks like a fun group of girls. Wonder if they would do a private dance

55. Hot AF, bootylicious

56. Sweet and yummy

57. Mmm hot sexy body

58. I like you beautiful

59. Nice legs

60. Can you do a stretching vid without a skirt on in undies that are way too tight

61. Want you caress and kiss you my love

62. I always love your tight panties. Thanks for the great position

63. Extreme cameltoe

64. Yummy body

65. Can I massage you

66. The view from behind must be amazing

67. I’ll put you on the bed n slowly take all your clothes off

68. Would love to get soapy with you

69. Dam you’re sexy goddam you’re hot

70. Camel toe - squirt emoji

71. Yeah I like to put it – rape emoji

72. Can you jump up and down and make them wobble more plz

73. Beautiful. Nice crotch

74. I wanna slide in that and fill it up

75. Let me suck your toes

76. Hot sexy baby

77. You are so sexy

78. I love you sexy lady

79. Sexy sexy sexy sexual lady

80. You delicious, beautiful to eat

81. Cute butt

82. You’re getting way too sexy little girl

83. Topless shoot would be so erotic

84. Yes love that shorts. When it’s come off baby

85. I’ll take you from the front or back baby..both my sweet little hot box

86. (I like) the front while lying on your back preferably with your legs spread open

87. Lovely cameltoe

88. I know she got a fat lil pussy

89. I bet you look amazing in those (underwear) I hope you show us

90. Ok I’m going out of line - you put it (underwear) on I take it off

91. Great pix - I was trying to imagine with less clothes

92. Panty lines so cute

93. I’d love to do that with you (pic of 2 girls in gymnastics pose)

94. Wow mine would go in so smooth

95. Sit on my face

96. Yummy baby

97. Stretch that labia

98. Are you really 10..Please open your legs

99. I busted a good night to this one

100. Looks like she's getting it ball deep, very hot

101. I masturbated to her

102. I'm hungry for it

103. el dedo en la vagina (the finger in the vagina)

104. I'm in need of a sugar baby that I will spoil with shopping allowance and gift. DM if interested USA only

105. I eat you

106. I pay for meeting you

107. You wear bra?

108. Care to be my sugar baby?

109. She's got legs for dayyyys (pic of 6yo girl)

110. You pose so perfect for tongue workout

111. That is such a naughty look in your eyes

112. So hot be perfect for you to take it

113. One sexy little princess

114. I thought cum in your face

115. I wish I was that pumpkin your sitting on

116. I better start tossing some money at you

117. fancy a drink?

118. Your vagina is little

119. Sexy legs small boobs

120. I wanna lick your pussy and ass

121. Love to taste your butt hole an lick your wet pussy

122. OMG anal licking

123. Let me put my dick in ur asshole

124. Her face after getting a massive cock in her fat pussy

We need to send a strong message to Instagram. Add your name to the letter here. 

See also:

Why is Instagram letting men share sexual fantasies about 7 year old girls?

Help Wake Up Instagram to Child Exploitation!

Instagram a “predator’s paradise”: Collective Shout joins anti sexploitation groups in global campaign

‘Sexy girl’: How Instagram allows the offering of young girls as fetishised flesh

Instagram a “predator’s paradise”:

Collective Shout joins anti sexploitation groups in global campaign

Earlier this year, YouTube came under public scrutiny for its facilitation of pedophile comments and networking in the comment sections of young children—but what we’re seeing on Instagram now is even worse.

We’re finding rampant sex trafficking, child sexual abuse grooming, as well as adult fetishisation of young girls on Instagram.

Collective Shout campaigner Lyn Kennedy said that since July, the movement had collected hundreds of samples of sexual, predatory comments on underage girls’ Instagram posts.

"What we’ve found shows that sexualisation and harassment of underage girls on Instagram is rampant. By giving adults unfettered access to children and facilitating the transmission of sexual comments—including requests for sexual images—from men to girls, Instagram is complicit in putting underage girls at risk and normalising them as available for sexual gratification," Kennedy said.

"If technology and social media companies are going to allow minors on their platform in any capacity, then they must provide adequate measures to keep children safe from sexual predators”. 

That is why Collective Shout has launched an international joint campaign with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (United States) and Defend Dignity (Canada) to call on Instagram to improve its policies!

By failing to protect the children using this social media site, Instagram is complicit in sexual exploitation caused by sex traffickers, predators, and pedophiles on its platform.

Join our international campaign to call on Instagram to make three vital policy improvements:

1) Instagram must change its settings so that strangers cannot direct message minors,

2) Instagram must fix its algorithm to proactively remove sexualising or sexually graphic comments on minor’s photos,

3) Instagram must update its reporting system so that if someone is reporting a sexual comment on a minor’s post it can be reported as such. The “harassment/bullying” selection does not capture the fact that these comments come from adults who are grooming/sexualising/harassing a child.

You can take action in three major ways:

First, you can email Instagram executives here. Fill out the short form and you can send an email directly to Instagram, demanding that they do better to protect minors!

Second, you can learn more and see censored screenshots and videos of proof here.

Third, you can post on social media using #WakeUpInstagram and #InstaPimpsGirls. Remember to tag @Instagram and their head @Mosseri in your post as well, so you can get their attention! Here are some sample tweets you could consider posting:

It's time to #WakeUpInstagram! We need to tell Instagram to fix safety features to stop sex trafficking, child abuse, and pedophile-like comments on minors' photos! #InstaPimpsGirls @Instagram @Mosseri

Minors whose Instagram accounts are set to private can still receive unsolicited direct messages from strangers, which has led to several instances of sex trafficking and child sexual abuse – this must be fixed! #WakeUpInstagram #InstaPimpsGirls @Mosseri

There are countless comments by predatory adults on the photos of minors on Instagram, where they leave sexually graphic comments, sexualize children, or solicit sex from children. Will Instagram fix this? #WakeUpInstagram #InstaPimpsGirls @Mosseri

Thank you for taking action and helping defend children from sexual exploitation online!

Corporate Sexploitation Offenders of 2019

Give these sexist companies a miss this Christmas!

Each year in the lead up to Christmas we release our annual blacklist of corporate offenders - companies which have objectified women and sexualised girls to sell their products and services during the year. Our supporters use this list as a guide to inform their desire to spend their money ethically.  

There is even more evidence now of the harms of these portrayals of women and girls. And far greater awareness of the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Many companies spout their supposed commitment to confronting sexism and promoting women’s empowerment and equality, while at the same time profiting from sexist marketing and products, as we have documented over and over.

You can send a strong message to these companies that you won’t tolerate these double standards, will vote with your wallet and refuse to financially support brands that profit from these demonstrably harmful practices. If they don’t understand ethics, perhaps they will understand when they start losing money.

Honey Birdette

At number one in our line-up, sex shop Honey Birdette routinely plasters its shopfronts with porn-themed representations of women in so called ‘family friendly’ shopping centres. To date, Ad Standards has investigated 66 Honey Birdette ads, upholding complaints in 38 cases. Honey Birdette refuses to play by the rules and our self-regulatory body has shown itself powerless to do anything about it. At time of writing, 76,000 individuals have signed a petition calling on the company to change their ways. Honey Birdette employees also describe a toxic workplace culture of sexual harassment and bullying, including being expected to use their sexuality to secure sales and pressured to tolerate sexual harassment and intimidation from male customers.

Shopping centres: Westfield, Lendlease, Vicinity, Stockland and more

These major shopping centres continue to host Honey Birdette’s porn-themed advertising, facilitating the display of sexist and sexually objectifying content to an all-age audience. It might be challenging to avoid all these shopping centres, but we encourage supporters to do all they can to obtain gifts elsewhere and boycott children’s activities including pics with Santa which, as we’ve documented, are often held in close proximity to Honey Birdette. Click here to see the full list of shopping centres.

Myer

Myer routinely displays hyper-sexualised advertising in their perfume department. Some brands that objectify women in their advertising are Viktor & Rolf, Frank Body, Dior, Paco Rabanne and Narciso Rodriguez. 

Frank Body

Australian make-up and skincare brand Frank Body routinely sexually objectifies women in their advertising, using sleazy double entendres and innuendo from their male persona ‘Frank’ about getting naked and dirty. The company dismissed concerns from a group of Melbourne teenage girls who objected to their sexist ‘Send Nudes’ lip tint, normalising and trivialising girls’ experiences of sexual harassment. Give this brand a miss.

Mecca 

We reached out to Mecca CEO Jo Horgan asking the company to withdraw Frank Body ‘Send Nudes’ lip tint, which normalises and legitimises the everyday sexual harassment experienced by teen girls. Our various approaches were all met with silence and Mecca continues to stock and profit from Frank Body products, despite their ongoing sexual objectification of women. Shop elsewhere this Christmas.

Chemist Warehouse

While many associate Playboy simply with its branded items or magazine, Playboy Enterprises own various adult TV channels and websites, broadcasting brutal, hardcore pornography. Retailers that stock Playboy branded products are helping Playboy to produce and distribute content that objectifies and degrades women. By stocking Playboy branded products Chemist Warehouse is profiting from the mainstreaming, normalising and embedding of a major brand of the sex industry into mainstream culture. 

Amazon

Online marketplace Amazon has a long history of stocking sexually exploitative products and this year the global giant hasn’t been any better. We first called them out in 2010 when they were selling “The Paedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A child-lover’s code of conduct”. Since then we have exposed Amazon selling pro-rape and pro-paedophilia merchandise, child sex dolls, and this year, rape and incest-themed books. Enough is enough- boycott Amazon this festive season.

Roll’d

Vietnamese restaurant chain Roll’d provided promotional t-shirts for young staff to wear with the slogan “Hot Noods”, exploiting staff and exposing young women to sexual harassment. Have your work Christmas party somewhere else this year.

General Pants

General Pants has a long history of using sexual exploitation to sell products, from change rooms plastered with pornographic imagery, live pole dancing displays, and a series of very large sexist shop front ads featuring young women in bikinis alongside slogans such as “Wet dreams” and “Slippery when wet”. Get your pants from a sexism-free shop.

Wicked Campers

This year we announced a victory in our decade-long campaign against Wicked Campers and their sexist and degrading slogans promoting rape and murder. Finally, state transport ministers signed an agreement to deregister vans carrying slogans like this. But - given they had to be forced to change after years of recalcitrance - you can still send them a message by refusing to rent Wicked Camper vans for any holidays travels.

UltraTune

While we’re on cars, UltraTune has attracted hundreds of complaints over their sexist ads, depicting women as mindless bimbos who can’t operate their vehicles. The company continues to show their contempt for women by hiring high-profile men with histories of rape and physical violence against women to star in their ads, including Mike Tyson and Charlie Sheen. Get your car serviced somewhere else this season.

Pizza Hub

This Melbourne based restaurant has designed its name and logo around the Pornhub website. The site hosts spy cam footage of women and girls, videos of men performing sex acts in front of teenagers in public and  ‘creep shot’ videos of school girls.  

So where can you shop?

Looking for some positive alternatives? Check out the companies which have signed our Corporate Responsibility Pledge not to objectify women and sexualise girls in their advertising, products and services. Do you know of any others? Let us know in the comments.

Following calls for BP service stations to stop profiting from sexist magazines, sexualising teen girls and encouraging sexual harassment, the service station chain has announced these magazines will no longer be sold in 350 of its company owned stores.

We were recently contacted by a small, anonymous and dedicated group tackling image based abuse. This guest blog post is written by one of their members to help shed light on the insidious world of non-consensual sharing of sexualised images on the internet. 

Guest blog post by the Truffle Hunters

When the smartphone was launched about ten years ago, some schools saw the danger straight away and banned such devices in schools. Others allowed students to wear their sports gear to school on sport days, in order not to be changing close to a trigger-happy ‘friend’. In other environments, separated couples found themselves at war over ‘Who Kept Which Photos’’ and the dark bi-product was image-based abuse, more commonly known as revenge porn. 

Thus, revenge porn became a ‘thing’. Kids taking sexualised pics of other kids without their consent in order to harass them online and share the visual spoils. Adults taking shots of partners in bathers and sharing on social media without permission. Partners posting naked pictures from a ‘fun’ session that was always meant to be ‘just between us’.

The landscape has changed, and the new image-based abuse sites don’t always contain naked pictures. Some contain fully-clothed images of women and girls, and let the captions do the talking. 

“Check this fat slut.  What would you do with her?!  PM me with suggestions.” 

“Rate my hot wife and her friends from 1-5 stars.”

“I love dance classes.  Check the new leotards on my dau and her friends…”

"Looking for cam or mic comments abouts my dau."

"Looking for chat with guys who'd fu*k this fat slut."

"New dance costumes on my dau and her friends. Don't you just love tiny titties?"

"DWM looking for no-limits taboo chat." (Divorced White Male)

"Camel toe fan seeks pic swap."

"NY state guys seeking yng fans."

"48(m)bipervforUSphonechat about my fat slut colleagues. This redhead's now a lez. Group fuck anyone?"

"Timid boi for no-limits older"

"Bi panty slut sharing pics. PM for private room."

These are actual phrases which have been used to encourage commentary on wives, ex’s, girlfriends, daughters, nieces and colleagues.  

The sad fact is that around the world, many thousands of men, often on a daily basis, are sharing photographs of their female relatives and friends, without their knowledge. The internet makes it so easy.

Meet the Truffle Hunters. They hunt nasty people online. Truffles are dark and hide underground. Metaphor established. It’s also an easier name to use with police, IT people, etc. ‘Troll Hunters’ has already been used.

This group started as a duo in the early-90s, when the Net was a new and wonderful thing that would allow communication and understanding like never before. One of the founders, *Chris, discovered that a colleague had been stopped after an overseas trip with some questionable images of children in his possession. He was charged with possession of suspicious magazines containing images of girls of unclear age but got off. A few weeks later, he started bragging in the office about being accepted as a trainee scout master. After a brief morning coffee chat with concerned female colleagues, Chris called the scout movement from a payphone, and reported the trainee who appeared to be getting ready to groom young boys.

Cut to 1996 and a new type of website emerged: The Chatroom. One of the first worldwide adult chatrooms was Bianca’s Smut Shack. Bored, and needing a laugh, Chris’ colleague *James started chatting online to people from around the globe. James found to his amazement that many of them posted porn images from other sites, which encouraged others to pile on more porn, engage in commentary and compare professional porn performers with wives, girlfriends and colleagues. 

Guys started turning up at Bianca’s Smut Shack. Guys who would not always post pics, but make comments about females in their lives, encouraging other men to comment. One guy turned out to be in the same Australian city as James. He was also keen to engage in conversation, about his wife, her body, their love life, and finally, their daughter. It turned out that she was the man’s stepdaughter, however had been raised as his biological child, in order to “keep things quiet”. Her body was also discussed.

James made one of the great realisations of the internet age: that some people will happily give away details of their nearest and dearest when they are anonymously online.

So, the chat continued, and the man continued to happily talk about his wife and stepdaughter.

Over the course of several weeks, he gave away his occupation (metallurgy), email address, city of origin, PO Box number, Asian work trips, daughter’s name, school and description. He was then easy to trace and a full profile was jotted down by James. After a chat with a colleague who had founded one of the first cyber-security degrees, James decided it was time to stop the potential abuser in his tracks.

How to do this?  

An email was sent to him the following week:  

“You have been part of a university cyber-security investigation for the past four months.  Your chats have been watched on a large screen. Please stop making crude comments about your daughter (name) and your wife. You should know better. If this happens again, we will contact the police.” 

He was not seen again. 

Over the next two decades Chris and James met five more kindred spirits, and the group widened into a network of seven, spread across Australia. They are made up of teachers, psychologists and parents. All have seen the effects of sexual abuse at school and in other workplaces. All are motivated by the ‘Ones They Couldn’t Save’. They communicate by secure email, and have their own ‘territory’ to patrol. These territories comprise chat rooms, Facebook, Appear.In.com, and other sites useful to pedophiles and sexual abusers.

One of the most notorious chatrooms is Chatropolis. It has supposedly been around since the early 90s, and contains over 25 rooms. Each is named with a different “theme”. Pics are shared, comments sought, and suggestive comments made. Most photos are not hard to trace. However, some are, and are stored on sites where they auto-delete after 24 hours. While Chatropolis has some rules on its front page concerning what can and can’t be posted, most have been broken on a regular basis. The site regularly has revenge porn photos, and occasionally child exploitation material.

Fortunately there are other groups around the world who do this type of work. Some invite a suspected offender to a public place to meet the person they think they have groomed, and publicly humiliate them. Some notify the workplace, as this has been found to be very effective.

The Truffle Hunters have a simple code: 

•      Spot the abusive person
•      Engage them in chat
•      See what information they will freely give
•      Find as much as possible
•      Try to identify the victim AND offender
•      Report back to the group with a request for official ‘file status’
•      All members investigate
•      Spouse, workplace or police are notified
•      Sometimes the offender is notified that they have been tracked
•      Close file 

This work has continued for two decades and shows no sign of being less important. 

Recent cases include:

• Man from Melbourne who urged chatters to ‘wank-over-my-oz-wife’, complete with photos of her by the pool, unwrapping Christmas gifts, dining in a restaurant.
• Man from Sydney who urged chatters to comment about his ‘German MILF wife’.  This was one of the most chilling cases. The man posted photos of his wife in a variety of social settings, in a variety of clothing.  He was so fulsome in his description that a quick right-click and Reverse Image Search revealed the woman’s name, email address, mobile number, Facebook page (with photos of her two small daughters), and profession.  If she was complicit in his games, she could have been struck off.
• Man from the UK who tried to embarrass his ex-wife online, by giving details of her relationship, sex life and church membership, for all to see. 

And so to one of the most recent and worrying cases. “Gladiator” was a daily contributor to Chatropolis.  He posted photos of his colleagues, mostly taken from Facebook (they were friends) with a few taken at work behind their backs. Six women were talked about in the most disgusting way, for a period of six months. How they’d spurned him, how they taunted him, how one was now a lesbian….  He included photos of one woman’s two-year-old daughter in the bath. He talked of the kind of violent sexual fetishes he had for another woman.

Gladiator was very careful not to give away any identifying information about the women.  Oh, except their place of work (electrical discounter in a southern US state). Image searches, contacting the workplace, nothing gave away a name. The store never replied to emails, and the local police gave a lukewarm response.

Gladiator also had an account on XHamster, a known porn-sharing site. On this site, he put photos of himself in ladies’ underwear, along with videos. In his videos, he would cover an ipad with plastic-wrap, and masturbate over images of his co-workers, friends and niece. This is known in the trade as “tributing”.

Gladiator finally gave away one woman’s surname in a moment of extreme vitriol about his colleagues. This one slip allowed the Truffle Hunters to identify the women on social media, and warn them. ‘OMG I feel sick’ was the common response when they discovered what this man, their colleague and friend, had been doing.

The six-month operation culminated on Friday September 13. The women targeted by Gladiator were able to watch live on social media while Chris chatted with Gladiator and recalled all his victim’s names and best features. Screenshots were taken, and the police (who had known about this man for a month) were notified.

Gladiator has gone quiet, and is ‘retired’ from his Xhamster account kolnats.

Who are the victims of revenge porn? 

Largely white, middle and working class women who have been in a relationship with a man who is given to hatred and envy. Photos that are posted are highly varied, but are mostly from holidays (= bikinis), dining out, or in suddenly revealing moments. 

Also prominent are photos of girls in sports outfits, bathers, dance costumes and the like. They range in age from 7 to 18. 

This type of image based abuse, rarely contains nude images. It is the words, comments, and suggestions that are dangerous. The women are also unwittingly forced to be in company they’d rather not keep. It is often easy to track women’s identities from these images. The goal of the men posting them is to get other men to contact women at work, or on social media, in order to embarrass them.

The Truffle Hunters are just one group.

(*Names have been changed for privacy)

Collective Shout is grateful for those individuals working tirelessly behind the scenes to tackle this problem of image based abuse. But why should they have to do this in the first place? In a society that sexualisates and objectifies women and children they are reduced to ‘things’ to be used and exploited. 

Collective Shout is campaigning for a world free of sexploitation where women and girls are valued. Join us! Sign up here.

If someone has shared an intimate, nude or sexual image of you without your consent, you can take action now. Click here to visit the eSafety website for more information and support. 

See also:

‘There’s no end and no escape. You feel so, so exposed’: life as a victim of revenge porn

The sexualisation of girls for profit [UPDATED]