The Ministry of Women and Child Affairs has referred an alleged online operation buying and selling private photographs and sexual content of women and children to two police units for criminal investigation.
The ministry said groups running on Facebook and other platforms are being used to trade private photographs and videos for money. After preliminary inquiries, its findings were passed to the Police Bureau for the Prevention of Abuse of Children and Women and to the Computer Crime Investigation Division, according to Ada Derana.
Investigations into some groups found individuals using fake accounts to sell photographs and videos of people known to them. In some cases, the ministry said, attempts were made to distribute or sell images of female members of their own families. A number of the groups are operated from overseas, which authorities said complicates efforts to shut them down.
SLCERT escalates group links to Meta
Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team Chief Information Officer Nirosh Ananda said the agency has received a large volume of complaints about leaked personal photographs, including explicit and semi-explicit images.
“We have already escalated these matters to Meta for the immediate removal of the content and to assist in identifying the people behind these activities,” he told NewsFirst.
Ananda said complainants’ confidentiality would be protected, and urged the public to report offending groups or links to SLCERT at [email protected] or through cert.gov.lk. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, prohibits sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent.
The activity surfaced over several weeks as users flagged Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp groups dedicated to sharing, requesting and trading intimate photographs without consent. Cybersecurity specialists say such conduct can amount to image-based abuse, harassment, blackmail and extortion rather than merely offensive behaviour.
Political pressure preceded the referral
The official response follows a call a day earlier by SLPP National Organiser and MP Namal Rajapaksa for immediate government action against the same networks.
“Digital platforms cannot become a safe haven for criminals, abusers or those who weaponise them for political purposes,” he said in a post on X, reported by Daily Mirror. Rajapaksa said the issue should not be met with warnings or victim-blaming, and called for illegal content to be removed, digital evidence preserved and perpetrators prosecuted.
The ministry urged parents to monitor children’s online contacts, warning that women and children can be exploited from inside their own homes. It said support is available on the 1938 and 1929 toll-free helplines, which offer psychosocial counselling alongside legal assistance. The Women and Children Bureau can be reached on 109.
SLCERT warned this month of an organised sextortion racket run through Instagram and WhatsApp, and five schoolboys were arrested in Kankesanthurai this year over AI-generated nude images of teachers.
Neither ministry nor SLCERT disclosed how many groups have been identified, how many complaints have been received, or whether any arrests have been made.
