When Anushka, a 19-year-old college student, found “morphed” nude images of herself online, she became suicidal. A former boyfriend pasted her face onto the naked bodies of other women, creating images of what appeared to be Anushka herself. The images, sent to her college WhatsApp group and posted online, were found by her parents the same day. Anushka’s story is just one among the countless instances of technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV), a growing problem affecting college students across India.
My research on TFSV revealed that online abuse disproportionately affected young women. I surveyed 400 students from 111 Indian higher education institutions and found that a staggering 60% of women experienced some form of TFSV compared to only 8% of men.
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