A new report by Chayn, a global non-profit organisation that examines gender-based violence, has highlighted the devastating impact of image-based abuse on women. The report, titled Explicit Harms of Non-Explicit Images, argues that authorities and tech companies are failing women by prioritising nudity over consent in image-based abuse cases.
The report features the story of Mahnoor, a 32-year-old Pakistani woman who was subjected to image-based abuse by her former husband. Her private images, which were never shared publicly, were used to portray her as a 'woman of bad character' and cost her social standing and respect in her community.
According to Chayn, image-based abuse is routinely misunderstood by authorities and tech companies because they continue to define harm primarily through nudity. However, the report argues that a fully clothed image can have consequences just as devastating as an intimate photograph within certain communities.
Hera Hussain, report author and founder of Chayn, says that the conversation around image-based abuse needs to be reframed away from nudity and towards consent. 'The image does not have to be nude for it to be harmful,' she says. 'Sometimes it can be as harmful, even if not a single body part is bare.'