The fourth wave of feminism became successful due to the internet and social media, but unfortunately, the rise in technology has also witnessed the emergence of new forms of crimes against women. There is a great deal of awareness of the dark and harsh reality of Pakistani women experiencing technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) daily.
The UN General Assembly, in its Resolution 54/134, designated 25th November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The Beijing Declaration was a resolution adopted by the UN at the end of the Fourth World Conference on Women on 15 September 1995, and this year marked its 30th anniversary.
Unfortunately, according to a report by the World Health Organization, nearly 1 in 3 women, which is estimated at 840 million worldwide, have experienced partner or sexual violence during their lifetime.
From 25 November to 10 December 2025, the 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-based Violence will be observed under the theme “UNiTE to End Digital Violence against All Women and Girls”. This campaign is an initiative by the UN Secretary-General, which focuses on one of the fastest-growing forms of abuse, namely digital violence against women and girls, as digital safety is central to gender equality.
The eighth annual report for 2024 of the Digital Rights Foundation’s Helpline noted that it had received a total of 20,020 complaints from across Pakistan since its inception in December 2016, with 3,171 complaints received in 2024 alone. Pakistan was bottom-ranked among 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025.
According to the UN Population Fund, “technology-facilitated gender-based violence is an act of violence perpetrated by one or more individuals that is committed, assisted, aggravated, and amplified in part or fully by the use of information and communication technologies or digital media against a person based on gender.”
The rise in technology and AI has made it imperative to amend and update the laws to deal with new kinds of situations and technology-facilitated violence against women and girls
TFGBV can be divided into two categories: those which already existed but are exacerbated due to modern technology, such as sexual harassment, stalking, hate speech, misinformation, defamation, and impersonation; and those which are newly emerged, such as hacking, deepfakes, doxing, cyberbullying, and online grooming.
Three challenges were identified in the 2024 report of the UN Secretary-General on violence against women and girls: the growing backlash against women’s rights; secondly, the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI); and thirdly, the expansion of the manosphere (a decentralized cross-platform collection of online communities of misogynistic men that amplifies sexist stereotypes in popular, shareable formats that gain traction at scale with limited accountability, given the perpetrators’ anonymity).
Pakistani laws include the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA). Sections 20 (offences against the dignity of a natural person), 21 (offences against the modesty of a natural person and minor), 22 (child pornography), and 24 (cyberstalking) of PECA are frequently used to deal with TFGBV cases. Section 28 of PECA makes the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 (PPC) applicable to PECA. TFGBV cases are also charged under sections 416 (cheating by personation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860.
The law, however, neither protects women journalists nor recognises femicide as TFGBV. The shocking murder of social media personality Sana Yousuf (age 17) is a case of technology-facilitated femicide.
Valeria Márquez, age 23, a Mexican model, was killed while live-streaming on TikTok in her beauty salon on 13th May 2025.
Similarly, protests were seen in September 2025 in Argentina, following the live-streamed brutal murder of Lara Gutierrez (age 15), Morena Verdi (age 20), and Brenda del Castillo (age 20).
The 2024 report recognises the connection between online and offline TFGBV against women and girls to better detect risks of online abuse escalating to offline violence, including lethal violence and femicide.
Men are also victims of honour killings. In Sikandar Ali Lashari v. The State, the Sindh High Court upheld the conviction passed by the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) for the honour killing of the son of a district judge. The prosecution argued that call detail record (CDR) data of the accused, Sikandar Lashari, showed that he was using the SIM of prosecution witness Abdul Saleem Afridi on his own International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number and remained in regular contact with accused Barkat Lashari, who in turn was in contact with the actual killers. However, the Supreme Court acquitted the accused persons without discussing the IMEI.
In Maria Awan v. Zohaib Zardari (SBLR 2025 Tribunal 199), the Office of the Provincial Ombudsman for the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace, Sindh, found the accused employer, running a YouTube channel, namely “Zindagi”, guilty of harassing his employee, as it was immaterial if the workplace existed physically or not. The office of the Ombudsperson held that it had the jurisdiction to look into the matter.
The rise in technology and AI has made it imperative to amend and update the laws to deal with new kinds of situations and technology-facilitated violence against women and girls. The means to regulate technological progress and to combat and control TFGBV are also being developed, but the challenges are immense. There is a dire need for the law to recognise new kinds of technology-facilitated offences against women and girls.