Women subjected to new forms of online sexual harassment including ‘zoombombing’ during lockdown

Women are being subjected to new forms of online sexual harassment while working from home during lockdown — which includes the troubling practice of “zoombombing”, a new study has found.

The report, carried out by campaign group MeTooEP, defines “zoombombing” as relentlessly harassing someone via video call on the conferencing platform.

Researchers found 16 per cent of 5,000 people they surveyed had endured “zoombombing”, stalking or threats on the Internet during the public health emergency.

Anni Hirvela, a spokesperson for MeTooEP, which seeks to address sexual harassment in the workplace, told The Independent: “Sexual harassment online involves someone sending very inappropriate messages or very inappropriate pictures. While zoombombing is a new term, many people do not know about.

“Now we are in confinement working from home, there is a whole new normal. Sexual harassment does not need people to be physically in the same place in order to take place. Working from home provides ways for new forms of sexual harassment to emerge. This is terrible as it is a fundamental part of being in a workplace to feel safe.”

Ms Hirvela, whose campaign group was initially set up to tackle sexual abuse within the European Parliament before broadening its remit to the wider workplace, argued working from home means perpetrators can evade scrutiny due to no longer being around fellow colleagues in the office.

Almost half of those polled said they were too scared to take further action when questioned about whether they had requested help after suffering sexual harassment or other misconduct online.

The campaign group, which gathers anonymous testimonies of sexual harassment and assault in the European Parliament, is urging the EU institutions, such as parliament and the commission, and “all other workplaces” to implement new measures addressing what it refers to as “old and new” forms of harassment.

A study by the Trades Union Congress previously found some two-thirds of young women had experienced harassment at the office.

The term “zoombombing” has also been used to refer to someone intruding or hacking into a video call. It has involved images of child sex abuse and racist and homophobic imagery being shared.

A study which came out in April found young women say sexual harassment, including men indecently exposing themselves, has become worse during the lockdown.

Plan International UK, who polled more than 1,000 women aged between 14 and 21, found one in five women have suffered harassment on the streets since the government implemented stringent social distancing measures — with a fifth of them saying the issue of harassment has got worse during lockdown.