Women Journalists in Pakistan under Digital Siege: A Human Rights Law Analysis of Platform-Enabled Harassment

Abstract

Digital harassment of women journalists in Pakistan is not a marginal online problem but a pervasive violation of fundamental human rights that reshapes who can speak, what can be said, and at what cost. This paper situates such harassment within Pakistan’s volatile media environment, characterized by censorship, political pressure, and entrenched misogyny, where the rapid uptake of digital platforms has expanded women’s visibility while simultaneously deepening their exposure to gendered abuse. It argues with reference to international human rights instruments, including the ICCPR, CEDAW, ICESCR, and their interpretive General Comments and Recommendations, that technology-facilitated attacks on women journalists directly threaten rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and dignity, equality and non-discrimination, freedom from violence, and the right to work in conditions of safety. The analysis traces how specific forms of online violence, such as doxxing, deepfakes, and other sexualized imagery, rape and death threats, and coordinated disinformation or trolling campaigns, produce tangible chilling effects on speech and participation, restricting the professional horizons and everyday security of women journalists. It then turns to Pakistan’s domestic legal and policy framework, examining constitutional protections, Articles 14, 19, and 25, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, and the Journalists Protection Act 2021 to show how formal guarantees are undercut by weak implementation, patriarchal institutional cultures, and limited access to effective remedies. In parallel, the paper interrogates the role of global technology companies whose inadequate local language moderation, opaque engagement-driven algorithms, and minimal safety infrastructure in Pakistan create enduring accountability gaps. Building on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the paper clarifies the complementary responsibilities of the state to protect and of corporate actors to respect and support human rights in digital spaces. On this basis, it advances a set of forward-looking proposals rooted in feminist and human rights-based approaches to digital governance, gender sensitive reform of cybercrime and media law,s stronger institutional accountability and independent oversight platform commitments to algorithmic transparency and robust local language moderation, and structured collaboration between state agencies, media organizations, and civil society. Conceptually, the paper frames online attacks on women journalists as a form of structural gender injustice that polices women's presence in the public sphere and erodes the conditions for pluralistic democratic debate. It concludes that building safe, egalitarian, and enabling digital spaces for women journalists in Pakistan is not only a matter of occupational safety but a prerequisite for meaningful press freedom and substantive gender equality.