In the decade since, she has fought to have the images scrubbed from the Internet while dealing with the long-lasting impacts.

Online, men from around the world continued to message and threaten her everyday and she has had to keep her identity concealed on her social media pages. She has a hard time concentrating on life and school, worrying that she could run into her abuser on the street.

“I was so scared that somebody would recognize me and put the pieces together and then my life would be over. It was an every day thing,” she said.

Increases across the board

Stephen Sauer is the director of Cybertip.ca, a national hotline ran by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (CCCP) to report the online sexual exploitation of children. He says they have seen about an 88 per cent increase in calls — including things like children receiving sexual messages or images from online — nationally since April 1, 2020.

Nationally, recent data from Statistics Canada shows police-reported online victimization of children is rising when compared to pre‑pandemic levels. According to the data, making, or distribution of child pornography increased by 1,512 cases, from 4,242 cases in 2019 to 5,754 cases in 2020, representing a 35 per cent increase.

Possession of pornography cases rose by 387 cases from 1,133 cases in 2019 to 1,520 cases in 2020, a 34 per cent increase. Luring a child via a computer crimes rose 19 per cent, with 1,736 reported cases in 2020 compared to 1,461 cases in 2019, and incidents of non‑consensual distribution of intimate images rose 14 per cent, with 827 reported cases in 2020 compared to 726 cases in 2019.