By Maheen Khurram – Assistant Manager – Digital, Starcom, Publicis Media | Karachi, Pakistan
Pakistan’s digital gender divide has long been described through a relatively simple question: are women online? Increasingly, the answer is yes. Not more than men of course for various reasons. The more difficult question is what happens after women connect on online.
I come to this question after nearly five years of working inside Pakistan’s media ecosystem, analyzing the userbase of anyone and everyone online in Pakistan, where they spend their time and what makes them engage. Through media-planning and advertising dashboards, audience research and platform data, I have analyzed everything from the demographics doom-scrolling Instagram Reels, what fraction is watching dramas on YouTube (overwhelming a lot), to the different personas clicking on ads for Louis Vuitton knockoff handbags versus ads for cat food. The DHA aunty overlaps many sub-types and categories and yes, you would be surprised.
After years of looking at these datasets, certain patterns become familiar. Ramadan, for instance, consistently reshapes Pakistan’s media-consumption habits: audiences gather around television and entertainment after iftar, and broadcasters and advertisers plan heavily around this seasonal increase in attention. Reporting on Pakistan’s television industry has similarly described Ramadan as a period when television audiences peak, particularly around family viewing after iftar (Iqbal).
But some patterns are harder to capture on a media dashboard. Who is connected does not necessarily tell us who feels comfortable participating. Research by the Digital Rights Foundation has found that online harassment can lead Pakistani women and digital creators to self-censor, avoid subjects and limit their online activity. One DRF study found that 70 percent of women surveyed were uncomfortable posting photographs of themselves online because they feared those images could be misused (Digital Rights Foundation, UN Policy Brief). More recent DRF research continues to document fear, self-censorship and exclusion from digital spaces as consequences of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (Digital Rights Foundation, “Beyond the Screen”). This creates an important limitation in the numbers I have spent years working with: a dashboard can tell us that a woman is reachable online; it cannot necessarily tell us how freely she is able to exist there.
Pakistan has made measurable progress in expanding women’s access to mobile internet. According to GSMA, approximately eight million women in Pakistan began using mobile internet in 2024 alone, reducing the gender gap in mobile internet adoption from 38 percent in 2023 to 25 percent in 2024 (GSMA, “Breakthrough Year”). The latest evidence suggests that progress has extended beyond internet use to the devices through which people connect. GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 reports that the share of Pakistani women who owned smartphones increased from 30 percent to 40 percent between its 2024 and 2025 survey rounds. The gender gap in smartphone ownership nevertheless remained 30 percent, placing Pakistan among the countries surveyed with the widest gaps (GSMA, Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 26). These are significant improvements. But they also reveal why measuring digital inclusion through a single indicator can be misleading. A woman can use the internet without owning the phone through which she accesses it. She can own a smartphone without having the skills, financial independence or freedom necessary to make full use of it. And she can participate online while facing forms of harassment or social control that constrain how freely she participates. Pakistan’s emerging challenge, therefore, is not simply expanding digital access. It is understanding the conditions under which that access becomes meaningful participation.
Pakistan Is Becoming More Connected
The scale of Pakistan’s digital transformation provides important context. DataReportal estimates that Pakistan had approximately 117 million internet users in October 2025, representing 45.6 percent of the population. It also recorded 194 million active cellular mobile connections and 79.9 million social-media user identities. Importantly, mobile connections are not equivalent to individual users: one person may maintain multiple connections, while some connections may provide only voice or SMS services (Kemp, “Digital 2026”). The same dataset estimates that approximately 139 million people remained offline at the end of 2025, although DataReportal cautions that delays in collecting and publishing internet-use data mean actual adoption may be higher than the available figures indicate (Kemp, “Digital 2026”).
The figures illustrate two realities simultaneously. Pakistan now has a vast digital ecosystem, but access remains far from universal. Gender adds another layer. Across Pakistan’s social-media ecosystem, DataReportal estimated that women represented 28.8 percent of social-media user identities at the end of 2025, compared with 71.2 percent for men. These figures draw on the advertising-planning tools of major platforms and should not be interpreted as a nationally representative survey of Pakistani internet users (Kemp, “Digital 2026”).
Still, the imbalance raises an important question: does closing the connectivity gap necessarily close the participation gap?
Access and Ownership Are Not the Same Thing
One reason for caution is that internet use, phone ownership and independent access measure different things. UNDP’s Pakistan National Human Development Report 2023/24 found significant disparities in digital development across gender, geography and income. Among its findings, 83.5 percent of women surveyed reported that their spouse or parents dictated their phone ownership (United Nations Development Programme, “Digital Development Index”).
Economic inequality compounds the problem. UNDP found that digital development among Pakistan’s richest quintile was approximately 15 times greater than among its poorest quintile. Almost half of Pakistan’s districts were classified as having low levels of digital development, while Islamabad was the only district categorized as having ‘very high’ digital development (United Nations Development Programme, ‘Digital Development Index’).
This makes the phrase ‘digital divide’ more complicated than it initially appears. There is a divide between people who are connected and those who are not, but there are also divisions based on device ownership, income, geography, gender, digital literacy and control over technology.
These distinctions matter because connectivity is increasingly tied to opportunities outside the digital world. Education, employment searches, professional networking, financial services, entrepreneurship, government information and commercial activity can all require some degree of digital participation. UNDP has similarly linked women’s access to digital tools with opportunities to develop businesses, participate in the digital economy and gain greater financial independence (United Nations Development Programme, ‘Tech Tales’).
Having occasional access to a family member’s phone is therefore not equivalent to owning a device that can be used privately and independently. This distinction may be particularly important across income groups and between rural and urban communities, where socioeconomic conditions, infrastructure, education and household dynamics can shape women’s digital access differently (United Nations Development Programme, Digitalisation and Women in Pakistan). At the same time, rural women have been central to Pakistan’s recent gains: GSMA found that the sharp increase in women’s mobile internet adoption in 2024 was largely driven by women living in rural areas (GSMA, “Breakthrough Year”).
The encouraging development is that the ownership gap is also narrowing. GSMA’s newest data show women’s smartphone ownership in Pakistan increasing from 30 percent to 40 percent, although a sizeable gender gap remains (GSMA, Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 26). Progress and inequality are therefore not contradictory descriptions of Pakistan’s current situation. Both can be true.
The Platforms Reveal Another Layer of the Divide
The platforms through which Pakistanis participate online provide another perspective. DataReportal, using Google’s advertising resources, estimated YouTube’s advertising audience in Pakistan at 54.3 million in late 2025. Women represented 39.7 percent of its adult advertising audience, compared with 60.3 percent for men. Meta’s advertising resources indicated a Facebook audience of 52.9 million, while women accounted for 34.9 percent of Instagram’s adult advertising audience compared with 63 percent for men. TikTok’s advertising resources indicated an adult advertising audience of approximately 79.9 million, with women representing 28.8 percent and men 71.2 percent (Kemp, “Digital 2026”). The differences across platforms are themselves noteworthy. Women appear more strongly represented within the measurable advertising audiences of some platforms than others. But these numbers require an important qualification: advertising reach is not the same thing as active users.
Google, Meta and TikTok’s advertising tools are designed primarily for marketers, not demographic research. DataReportal explicitly cautions that advertising reach should not automatically be interpreted as monthly active users and notes that platforms may periodically revise their audience estimates (Kemp, “Digital 2026”). These figures therefore cannot establish that exactly 71.2 percent of Pakistani TikTok users, for example, are men. What they provide is an additional indicator of substantial gender imbalances within the measurable audiences of some of Pakistan’s largest digital platforms.
That distinction is particularly relevant because Pakistan’s population itself is relatively evenly divided by gender: women accounted for approximately 49.3 percent of the population and men 50.7 percent in late 2025 (Kemp, “Digital 2026”). The disparity between national demographics and the gender composition visible within platform advertising audiences consequently warrants further research rather than a simple conclusion.
When Access Does Not Mean Freedom
Greater digital participation also raises a second question: whether women can participate safely and independently once they are connected. Research on women’s digital participation in Pakistan suggests that inequalities governing women’s lives offline can shape their experiences online. UNFPA’s research on technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in Pakistan situates the problem within a broader environment shaped by entrenched gender norms, limited agency among women, poverty, unequal access to education and information, and the normalization or justification of gender-based violence (United Nations Population Fund).
Digital technology therefore presents something of a dual reality. It can give women access to information, communities, education, employment and economic opportunities that might otherwise be difficult to reach. At the same time, existing social inequalities do not disappear when someone logs on. Expectations surrounding women’s behaviour, family reputation and public visibility can follow women into digital spaces, while technology can introduce new mechanisms for harassment, surveillance, impersonation and abuse (Digital Rights Foundation, Gendered Disinformation During Elections in Pakistan).
The experiences of female content creators provide some of the most extreme examples. In June 2025, 17-year-old TikTok creator Sana Yousaf was shot and killed inside her Islamabad home. Police described the case as one involving “repeated rejections”; in May 2026, an Islamabad sessions court convicted Umar Hayat of her murder and sentenced him to death, subject to confirmation by the Islamabad High Court (Asad). Yousaf’s case should not be treated as representative of the ordinary experience of Pakistani women online. It does, however, demonstrate in an extreme form how digital visibility can intersect with offline gender-based violence. Her killing also sits within a broader history of violence involving women and girls with visible social-media presences. Digital Rights Foundation’s research discusses the 2016 murder of social-media celebrity Qandeel Baloch; the 2021 killing of TikTok creator Muskan Sheikh and three colleagues, which police attributed to a personal dispute; the mob assault of content creator Ayesha Akram in Lahore; and the 2025 killing of a 15-year-old girl in Quetta whose father, according to police, objected to her digital presence and lifestyle (Digital Rights Foundation, “Viral Misogyny”).
These incidents differ substantially in circumstance and motive and should not be collapsed into a single category. Their relevance lies instead in demonstrating the different ways women’s visibility online can intersect with gendered expectations, harassment and violence. The reaction to Yousaf’s murder is particularly revealing. Digital Rights Foundation analysed 180 pieces of content and comments across major social-media platforms and found victim-blaming, misogynistic stereotypes and narratives treating Yousaf’s public presence as a violation of conservative gender norms. Rather than focusing responsibility solely on the perpetrator, some discourse scrutinized Yousaf’s character and decision to maintain a public social-media presence. DRF characterizes this moralized victim-blaming as gendered disinformation and gendered hate speech (Digital Rights Foundation, “Viral Misogyny”).
This matters because gender-based digital harm exists along a much broader spectrum than its most extreme cases. Between May 2024 and December 2025, DRF’s Digital Security Helpline handled 5,041 new cases involving online violence against women, trans women, journalists, lawyers, religious minorities and human-rights defenders. Women and trans women faced particularly high rates of hacking, image-based abuse, including AI-generated deepfakes, blackmail, and sextortion. These figures do not establish that online violence is causing Pakistani women, at a population level, to abandon social-media platforms. What they demonstrate is that access and freedom of participation are not necessarily the same thing. Harassment, threats, blackmail, deepfakes and reputational attacks can affect people’s safety, careers and ability to participate publicly; DRF itself describes some coordinated digital abuse as intended to silence, isolate, intimidate or socially punish those targeted (Digital Rights Foundation, “Inside Pakistan’s Digital Abuse Crisis”).
The consequences can also be economic. If women depend on digital spaces to find work, promote businesses, build professional networks, sell products or create content, restrictions on safe participation can affect more than expression. UNDP has noted that digital abuse can compromise access to employment, education and civic participation, meaning digital safety can also become a question of economic and social inclusion (United Nations Development Programme, “Scrolling Toward Change”).
The issue is not solely social. Institutional and technological structures can influence the severity of these harms. DRF argues that content-moderation systems frequently struggle to identify gendered hate speech expressed in regional languages and dialects such as Roman Urdu, allowing culturally specific forms of abuse to escape effective moderation (Digital Rights Foundation, “Viral Misogyny”).
Pakistan has begun addressing these concerns institutionally. In 2026, the Ministry of Human Rights, in collaboration with UNDP, developed the country’s first National Strategy to Address Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence 2026–2030. The strategy addresses harassment, cyberstalking, image-based abuse, impersonation and coordinated online intimidation, and establishes a national framework for prevention, protection, redress and institutional coordination (National Strategy to Address Technology Facilitated Gender-Based Violence 2026–2030).
The scale of the broader enforcement challenge is substantial. Pakistan recorded approximately 135,000 cybercrime complaints in 2024, while only 826 cases proceeded to prosecution, around 0.6 percent (United Nations Development Programme and Ministry of Human Rights). This figure encompasses cybercrime generally and should not be interpreted as 135,000 cases of TFGBV. It nevertheless provides context for the institutional challenges surrounding reporting, investigation and prosecution.
The intersection between gender inequality and technology therefore complicates any straightforward narrative about Pakistan’s shrinking digital gender gap. Technology does not create the inequalities that precede it, nor should digital platforms alone be held responsible for the social structures within which they operate. But technology can provide new mechanisms through which existing inequalities are expressed or amplified, while weak privacy protections, inadequate moderation and ineffective institutional responses can increase the consequences for those targeted.
This does not diminish the opportunities created by connectivity. For women across Pakistan particularly those whose physical mobility, geography or economic circumstances may otherwise restrict their access to opportunities, the internet can provide routes into education, entrepreneurship, financial independence, professional networks and communities. That is precisely why the conditions and context of access matter.
Digital inclusion cannot therefore be measured solely by connectivity. A woman may have a smartphone, an internet connection and a social-media account while still facing restrictions on how visibly or freely she can use them. The next measure of progress is whether women can convert access into opportunity while participating independently and safely.
Pakistan’s Progress Matters Beyond Pakistan
Pakistan’s experience forms part of a wider gender divide across lower- and middle-income economies. GSMA’s Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 estimates that women across low- and middle-income countries remain 12 percent less likely than men to use mobile internet. Approximately 810 million women remain unconnected, and more than two-thirds live in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (GSMA, Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026). South Asia nevertheless demonstrates how quickly these disparities can change. Women’s mobile-internet penetration across the region increased from 17 percent in 2017 to 51 percent in 2025, while the gender gap in mobile-internet use fell from 66 percent to 25 percent. Approximately 330 million women in the region still remained unconnected in 2025 (GSMA, Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026).
Device ownership presents another challenge. GSMA reports that South Asia continues to have the widest regional gender gap in smartphone ownership. Pakistan remains among the countries with particularly large gaps, even as women’s smartphone ownership increased from 30 percent to 40 percent between the latest survey rounds (GSMA, Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 26).
Pakistan is therefore not simply an example of South Asia’s digital gender problem. It is also becoming an example of its progress. That distinction matters. Narratives about gender inequality in South Asia can sometimes treat disparities as static. Pakistan’s recent numbers demonstrate that they are not. The more useful questions now are what drove the improvement, which women are benefiting most, and whether those gains can be sustained.
Connectivity Is Only One Measure
The evidence suggests that Pakistan’s digital gender divide is narrowing by several important measures. Millions more women are using mobile internet, women’s smartphone ownership has increased, and Pakistan’s overall digital ecosystem continues to expand (GSMA, “Breakthrough Year”; GSMA, Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026; Kemp, “Digital 2026”).
That progress deserves to be recognized. But it also creates space for more precise questions about what digital inclusion actually means.
How many women own the devices through which they connect, rather than borrowing them? How many have independent and private access? How do patterns of participation differ between rural and urban women, income groups and educational backgrounds? Which digital skills allow connectivity to translate into employment, education or entrepreneurship? Why does female representation appear to differ substantially across platform advertising audiences? And when users encounter harassment, fraud or abuse, how effectively can institutions and platforms respond?
These questions move the discussion beyond a binary distinction between being online and offline. They also make it possible to recognize Pakistan’s progress without allowing that progress to obscure the inequalities that remain.
Eight million additional women using mobile internet in a single year represents meaningful change (GSMA, “Breakthrough Year”). Women’s smartphone ownership rising from 30 percent to 40 percent represents another (GSMA, Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 26).
The first stage of the digital divide was largely about connection. The next is about what people are able to do once they connect and whether they can turn that connection into autonomy, opportunity and meaningful participation.
Author Bio
Maheen Khurram is an Assistant Manager – Digital at Starcom, Publicis Media in Karachi, Pakistan, with professional experience across digital media, consumer research, audience insights and strategic communications. Her work includes translating consumer and performance data into communication and media strategies across Pakistani and international markets. She also writes independently on media, culture and social issues.
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