‘If Those Were Pictures of You, You Would Understand’

Two sisters talk candidly about their lives after being sexually abused as children. It has been 10 years, but online photos and videos continue to haunt them.

By Michael H. Keller and Gabriel J.X. Dance

Two sisters from the Midwest are among the untold number of survivors of child sexual abuse who say they are unable to escape their horrific experiences because of the internet.

When they were 7 and 11, the sisters were sexually abused by their father. In one video, the younger sister, F., was drugged and raped by him and another man. Both men are now in prison, but the imagery continues to circulate on the web.

Millions of photos and videos of children being sexually abused exist on a wide range of platforms, from Dropbox to Facebook Messenger, for criminals around the world to see. An investigation by The New York Times found that the technology industry has consistently failed to take coordinated steps to shut down the illegal content.

Read about this difficult subject HERE.