Understanding and Combatting Youth Experiences of Image-Based Sexual Harassment and Abuse

THE STUDY

Our combined qualitative and quantitative research responds to gaps in our understanding of imagebased sexual harassment and abuse, as distinct from the abstract category of ‘sexting’. We conducted focus group interviews with 144 diverse young people (aged 12 to 18) across seven schools. The majority of participants were under 15 years-old, creating a unique data set with children under the age of sexual consent (16) and under the legal sexting age (18). The focus groups were structured as part of Sharing Networked Images Practices (SNIP) mApping workshops that explored how young people create images for social media sharing, and also the sexual content that they receive via social media apps. For our quantitative method, we administered an online survey to 336 young people. Survey questions explored their experiences with a range of image-sharing practices, including their experiences of receiving unwanted sexual images, unwanted solicitation for sexual images and image-based sexual abuse.

Through documenting the digital platforms in use and how technological affordances mediate behaviour, capacities and decision making around image sharing, our research contributes a unique viewpoint to the research on digital sexual violence. Furthermore, by documenting young people’s experiences of the support they received when faced with digital sexual violence, our findings have important policy and practice implications for a range of stakeholders, including schools, families and communities.