Islamabad:Naghmana Hashmi, advisor for Federal Ombudsperson Secretariat for Protection Against Harassment at Workplace (FOSPAH), has said that nearly 15 per cent of professional women are compelled to leave their jobs due to online harassment.
Ms Hashmi was addressing a seminar about technology-facilitated violence against women and girls hosted here by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI). Ms Hashmi said Pakistan loses billions annually in productivity due to workplace harassment. We cannot achieve economic growth if half of our population is scared to be harassed online, she argued.
Dr Syed Kaleem Imam, former IG Police, criticised the existing infrastructure, noting that while Islamabad introduced modern "facilitation centers," much of the country lacks specialised units for gender-sensitive interviewing. He debunked the myth that cybercrime is untraceable, stating that "every digital act leaves a forensic footprint," but admitted that law-enforcement needs better training in trauma-informed approaches.
Dr Razia Safdar from SDPI emphasised that though the government is promoting digital transformation, the lack of safety is creating a “new frontier of violence.” She cited global data showing that 67% of women are affected by online misinformation and 66% experience cyber harassment.
“Online harassment is no longer confined to the digital space as it translates into real-life threats,” she warned, noting that AI-driven threats like deepfakes and manipulated content are causing irreversible emotional and reputational harm.
Fahmida Khan, Deputy Country Representative for UN Women Pakistan, shared a harrowing personal experience where her own photograph was misused on an online platform. If individuals in professional positions can be exploited so easily, the risk for women in rural areas is catastrophic, she stated. She highlighted that 99% of non-consensual deepfake pornography targets women, yet many are silenced by cultural stigma and a lack of policy specifically addressing tech-facilitated gender-based violence.
Muhammad Akram Mughal, Deputy Director of National Cyber Crime Investigation (NCCI), said that while complaints surged, the conviction rate for cybercrime in Pakistan remains a low 3.7 per cent.
“Our investigators are overwhelmed. Under international standards, one officer should handle 10 cases, in Pakistan, they are managing over 400 each,” he explained. Despite these hurdles, he noted that over 250 awareness seminars in universities have helped reduce certain incidents by 30 per cent.
Usman Zafar, a digital resilience specialist at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), highlighted the "gendered propaganda" used to silence women in public life. He distinguished between misinformation and mal information, the sharing of private, real content with harmful intent, which is increasingly used to target activists and journalists.
The panel concluded with a multi-level strategy for a safer digital Pakistan that include developing a comprehensive legal framework, One-Stop Crisis Centers to provide legal, medical and psychological support without the immediate requirement of an FIR, integrating digital citizenship and privacy management into the national school curriculum and enforcing human rights standards for tech companies operating within Pakistan.
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