Shaping Responses to Cybercrime Against Women and Girls: Evidence, Dialogue, and Global Perspectives

Shaping Responses to Cybercrime Against Women and Girls: Evidence, Dialogue, and Global Perspectives

Room: R257

Time: 11:00 to 12:00, 26 October 2025

Organizer: Centre for Human Rights

Side Event Description: This side event offers a vital platform to examine prevention and response strategies for cyber offences against women and girls, focusing on non-consensual intimate imagery. It combines findings from Pakistan’s first evidence-based diagnostic study with dialogue among global experts. Organized by the Centre for Human Rights (CFHR – Pakistan), the Centre for Governance Research (CGR – Pakistan), and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), the event brings together operational expertise, analytical insight, and international perspectives. Panelists include representatives from GI-TOC, CFHR, CGR, UNODC, and Pakistan’s National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA).

Pakistan ranks 7th globally in internet users, with 116 million users, including 54 million women. Between 2023 and 2024, female mobile internet usage rose from 33% to 45%, marking the largest digital gender gap reduction among surveyed countries. However, this growth has been accompanied by a surge in cyber offences targeting women—ranging from harassment to image-based abuse—driven by structural inequalities, weak protections, and sociocultural pressures. These dynamics highlight the urgency of centering gender in cybercrime responses.

Drawing on an intersectional analysis, the panel will explore how cyber offences disproportionately affect women, identify systemic and operational gaps, and propose evidence-based interventions. Comparative insights from other jurisdictions offer best practices to contextualize national findings within global strategies under the UN Cybercrime Convention.

Objectives: (i) Share findings from Pakistan’s first NCII study; (ii) Enable comparative dialogue; (iii) Translate insights into actionable global pathways.

Implications: Situating Pakistan’s data in global dialogue supports survivor-centered, gender-sensitive frameworks under the Cybercrime Convention and underscores the need for sustained international cooperation and collaboration.

Expected Participants: 36-70 people