In chat rooms and across online forums, men are trading explicit and intimate images and videos of women, often without their consent.
The material is being shared and traded on popular social media platforms such as Reddit.
This BBC Panorama program reported by Monika Plaha investigates a flourishing subculture in which thousands of images are routinely shared by men in private chat groups.
“This is not a phenomenon of perverts or weirdoes or other oddballs who are doing this. There’s too many of them,” says law professor Clare McGlynn. “It’s tens of thousands of men, average men.”
Plaha investigates one popular Reddit site in which up to 20 000 users, many using fake names, share explicit images and videos of women.
She finds that sometimes the online abuse follows the women into the real world.
“I got a, like DM from this random account saying that they found my image,” says one woman whose Instagram photo was posted onto a Reddit site. “I get them every day. They want me in a hotel and people ask me if I take money.”
Plaha also discovers that one community of women in the United Kingdom is particularly vulnerable.
“If you are a South Asian girl who’s been conditioned to not talk about these issues, you don’t have the ability to go and talk to your mom necessarily or your sister or your aunt,” says Natasha Rattu from the charity Karma Nirvana.
“We’ve had women and girls that have rang the helpline absolutely petrified that images are going to be leaked, where they’re being blackmailed to pay money.”
One young woman whose images are being shared makes a powerful plea to those involved.
“My message out there is for all the people that are doing this, please just stop this.”
Foreign Correspondent: The Secret World of Trading Nudes – Thursday 13 October at 8pm on ABC TV nd ABC iview
Media Release: ABC