On 9 July, SWGfL CEO David Wright joined a panel at the OECD Forum on Gender Equality in Paris, addressing how the digital age is transforming gender-based violence against women public figures worldwide.
The session, part of the Forum's focus on harnessing digital transformation for gender equality, brought together panellists from government, parliament and civil society: Laura Rissanen (State Secretary, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finland), Senator Alison Comyn (Chair of the Women's Caucus, House of the Oireachtas, Ireland), Jamila Venturini (Co-Executive Director, Derechos Digitales) and Simone Eymann-Pasquini (Director, Tech Against Violence), moderated by Kévin Magron, Deputy Director for Science, Technology and Innovation at the OECD.
A Consistent Pattern Across Very Different Contexts
Senator Comyn opened her contribution with findings from a new report she wrote the foreword for, a five-country EU-funded study on gender-based violence against women politicians in Ireland: 96% of female Oireachtas members have experienced online violence.
David followed with findings from the Revenge Porn Helpline's 2025 Annual Report, published just three days before the session. The Helpline recorded 24,786 reports in 2025, up 11% on the previous year and the busiest year since it launched in 2015, and reported 20,841 images for removal, up 34%, with a removal rate of 94%. Of the images reported, 98.9% were of women, with an average of over 10 images shared per case.
The data also revealed distinct patterns by gender. Women overwhelmingly identified a male perpetrator, most commonly a current or former partner, while cases involving male victims were dominated by sextortion, frequently linked to organised criminal gangs operating overseas.
David also referenced separate SWGfL modelling suggesting that non-consensual intimate image (NCII) abuse may affect millions of women globally each year, a scale comparable to CSAM reporting, but without anything close to the same coordinated international response.
From Evidence to Infrastructure
Discussion turned to what collaborative infrastructure already exists to respond to this scale of abuse. David set out three areas of SWGfL's work:
StopNCII.org, the world's first device-side hashing technology, now live across more than 70 platforms globally, allowing adults to prevent the sharing of their intimate images without ever having to send the image itself.
The Global Clearing Centre, collaborative reporting infrastructure already active across seven countries, drawing on SWGfL's network of 133 NGO partners worldwide.
The Model National Framework, launched at this year's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), offering governments a template for legislative and operational responses to NCII abuse.
Cooperation Over Consensus
A recurring theme across the panel was that political and cultural context varies significantly between countries, yet the underlying pattern of abuse does not. Whether the target is a woman in an intimate relationship, a public figure, or an elected representative, panellists agreed that meaningful progress depends less on further agreement in principle and more on platforms, governments and civil society organisations translating that agreement into coordinated action.
David Wright, CEO of SWGfL, said: "Sitting alongside colleagues from Finland, Ireland and Latin America, what struck me most was how consistent this picture is across very different political and cultural contexts. The evidence and the tools to act on this already exist. What keeps getting in the way is turning shared understanding into shared infrastructure. That's the gap we've spent the last decade trying to close, from the Revenge Porn Helpline to StopNCII and now the Model National Framework."
The full 2025 Revenge Porn Helpline Annual Report is available to read here.
