Reports of non-consensual intimate image (NCII) abuse, or “revenge porn”, in the UK have increased tenfold over the past few years. But the true scale of the problem is probably larger, as many victims do not come forward.
I didn’t. When I was 17, my Instagram account was hacked by someone I knew, and a graphic image of my body was posted on my profile. Despite being up for only five minutes, it was screenshotted and shared around by boys in my year. The worst part was the powerlessness I felt. I had to seek out these people and beg them to remove the screenshots, and when they didn’t, I went to my school to ask them to intervene. Going to the police felt like it would escalate the situation when I just wanted everyone to forget it. My experience, like those of so many others, never showed up in the official statistics.
