A shelter in the rain

Online image-based sexual violence has wrought havoc on scores of people in Hong Kong. Oasis Hu reports from the city’s first victim crisis center where she finds that tackling the problem is tough and complicated.

Editor's note: We're witnessing an upsurge in cyber sexual violence with severe consequences for the victims. The second part of our series on the issue investigates the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images on websites.

Blue Li Yeuk-lam recalled the repeated shocks she had to endure while going about the harrowing task of dismantling nonconsensual intimate images on the internet.

The images, depicting victims' private moments, were uploaded without their consent on pornographic websites, interspersed among other explicit content and often accompanied by degrading titles fabricating a fake and pornographic narrative.

The videos were usually accompanied by comments with repulsive criticisms or sexually-inclined remarks taunting the victims.

Li, in her 20s, is among a handful of people in Hong Kong whose job is to take down these sordid online images. She has been working for three years at RainLily - the city's first one-stop crisis center set up in 2000 which introduced an assistance service in 2021 to help victims remove nonconsensually distributed images.

Image-based sexual violence has become more prevalent in the past decade, encompassing a range of behaviors like clandestine photography, nonconsensual sharing of intimate images, extortion through the dissemination of private photos, and the manipulation of victims' likenesses using tools like Photoshop or deepfake technology to fabricate pornographic materials.

These actions form a continuum of violence in which filming, distribution and coercion are intertwined, resulting in substantial physical and psychological harm to victims.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region enacted the Crimes (Amendment) Ordinance in 2021, criminalizing four image-based sexual violence offenses - voyeurism; unauthorized recording of intimate parts of victims; publication of images originating from voyeurism or unlawful recording; and publication or threatened publication of intimate images without consent. The offenses carry a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment.

Despite the tough new law, crimes involving image-based sexual violence have continued to climb. Last year, the police logged 1,040 such cases, with data indicating there had been an average of more than one case daily in Hong Kong depicting illegal sex photography or voyeurism.

In August, local media uncovered a website that openly solicited money through crowdfunding. Once the target amount was reached, contributors could access a "virtual room" with videos and images of women who had been surreptitiously filmed. The website boasted of having more than 20 such rooms, with an "unlocking fee" as high as HK$200,000 ($25,650). More than 20 women had been victimized.

Doris Chong Tsz-wai, executive director of RainLily, says victims of image-based sexual violence require psychological counseling and legal recourse, and their most pressing need is to get their photos removed from the internet immediately. But it isn't a walk in the park.