Vulnerable groups in Pakistan, including women, religious minorities, and gender minorities, are experiencing digital intimidation, as per a report by the Digital Rights Foundation (DRF). The report highlights emergent dangers such as sextortion, hacking, and deepfake imagery. Between May 2024 and December 2025, the DRF helpline dealt with 5,041 new cases, with a significant number receiving digital safety advice and reporting reduced risks.
The impact of online abuse in Pakistan is complex and far-reaching, with consequences that cannot be ignored. The editorial in Pakistan’s daily Dawn emphasizes the need for the state to address the internet environment, especially for marginalized communities, through targeted awareness campaigns on digital safety. The DRF has urged the use of digital tools to combat compromised accounts, hacking, blackmail, fraud, and image-based violations.
Online harassment in Pakistan’s digital space often manifests through coded language, slang, political and faith-based insinuations, and context-specific hate campaigns, according to the DRF’s security helpline. The latest annual report by the DRF revealed that online abuse in Pakistan is evolving rapidly, outpacing the systems in place to address it. Artificial Intelligence is identified as a key factor transforming harassment into a more scalable and anonymous form that is challenging to trace.
Survivors of online abuse, particularly those outside major cities, face barriers in seeking justice due to travel, resource constraints, and lack of support. Children, including those as young as six, are increasingly vulnerable to online harm, with risks such as grooming, sexual exploitation, and AI-enabled abuse. Women, especially women journalists, bear the brunt of digital violence, facing non-consensual image sharing, blackmail, and sextortion as tactics of gendered harassment aimed at silencing and intimidating them.
