Women
After experiencing image-based sexual abuse, Yiu Xin Yin felt isolated and frustrated with the reporting process. She later teamed up with three women to start The Moxie Collective – a Singapore community supporting survivors and pushing for greater awareness and understanding of IBSA.
Yiu Xin Yin (left) and Raag Sudha Sanjay started The Moxie Collective with two other women, with the aim of spreading knowledge of image-based sexual abuse and offering a community to victim-survivors. (Photo: The Moxie Collective)
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17 Jun 2026 06:56AM
After Yiu Xin Yin was filmed during an intimate act without her consent, she reported the incident as a victim of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA).
At the police station, the officer taking her statement made several calls to seek the opinion of investigating officers, Yiu recalled. Details of her case were shared in her presence. “It was upsetting and insensitive,” she said.
Yiu said the police officer told superiors several times that there was “no dissemination of content or threats” in her case. “I felt that reduced my case, that it wasn’t a big deal,” she said.
She was struck by the lack of empathy she encountered during the reporting process. She had already struggled with whether it was “serious enough to report”, so the reaction of the police meant a great deal to her.
“Perhaps part of it comes from a kind of systemic exhaustion that leads people to normalise victims’ experiences or become desensitised to them,” said the 25-year-old. “But even small moments of empathy can make a significant difference to how the process is for the survivor.”
Yiu felt “incredibly isolated” after the 2021 incident. Frustrated that she had to chase the police for updates, she searched for solace in others but found it hard to find women with the same shared experience.
In November 2022, she posted about her experience on Instagram and many IBSA victim-survivors reached out to her after that.
Her post attracted the attention of a university researcher studying tech-facilitated forms of sexual violence, as well as an acquaintance in the mental health space. The latter asked if Yiu wanted to start a community for victims like herself.
Yiu agreed and teamed up with the researcher and the acquaintance. The researcher also brought in an ally, Raag Sudha Sanjay, 30, and The Moxie Collective was launched in December 2023.
As a victim-survivor of IBSA, Yiu Xin Yin was frustrated by the reporting process and found the entire experience incredibly isolating. (Photo: The Moxie Collective)
It is an informal community for women in Singapore who have experienced IBSA. All four co-founders – a mix of survivors and allies – have full-time jobs and run the collective in their own time. The two co-founders not interviewed in this story requested to remain anonymous.
“We all saw the need to provide a space of solace for victim-survivors because of how rampant victim-blaming is in society, as well as the burdens that a victim-survivor has to carry after the harm has landed,” Yiu told CNA Women.
DIGITAL HARMS CAN RESURFACE LATER
The Association of Women for Action and Research’s (AWARE) Sexual Assault Care Centre defines IBSA as the non-consensual creation, obtainment and/or distribution of sexual images or videos of another person. Threats to do so are also considered IBSA.
Examples include upskirt videos, deepfake porn , revenge porn and video voyeurism, such as the use of spy cameras.
Yiu said it can be hard to get people to acknowledge that IBSA is a real thing.
While some understand the length and severity of the harm, there are others who separate the digital world from the physical world, so they belittle the harm that victims face as “there are people having it worse”.
Downplaying the severity of one type of harm over another is damaging for all survivors, Yiu said.
“It shifts the focus away from the survivor’s lived experience and the support they need,” she added. “Instead, it may be more constructive to focus on addressing these harms without undermining the experiences of other survivors.”
Raag Sudha Sanjay says that IBSA is “a violation of dignity” and hopes it will be “taken more seriously on a human rights level”. (Photo: The Moxie Collective)
Yiu added that digital harms also work differently as they may return in the future. “Once there’s a screenshot or a video of someone in the nude, anyone can replicate that at any given time,” she said.
The burden is also often on the victim to take action. In Yiu’s case, she thought the police would contact the perpetrator’s university but she had to do it herself. It distressed her that she had to recall the incident to yet another party.
FINDING COMFORT IN OTHER VICTIM-SURVIVORS
The Moxie Collective operates as a safe space for victim-survivors, even if they don’t want to report the harm.
Co-founder Raag noted the process of reporting to institutions – whethe…
Read the full article at Channel NewsAsia (CNA) →
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