Pakistan’s first Cyber Harassment Helpline to go live on 1st December

Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) has announced the launch of Pakistan’s first ‘Cyber Harassment Helpline’ on December 1, 2016.

Nighat Dad, Founder and CEO of Digital Rights Foundation Pakistan, was awarded the 2016 Human Rights Tulip Award earlier in November along with €100,000 to further her cause. On the announcement of the award she shared her plan of using the prize money to launch first ever Cyber Harassment Helpline. And now, DRF has officially announced that helpline will go live from December 1st. It states on DRF’s Facebook page,

“It will provide a free, safe, and confidential service to victims on online harassment. The Helpline aims to provide legal advice, digital security support, psychological counselling, and a referral system to victims.”

The launch of helpline was announced in “Ending Online Violence against Women” conference by Hamara Internet campaign of DRF on November 28, 2016. This campaign promotes free and secure digital environment for women. Any online abuse can be reported on 0800-39393.

Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) also hosted the “Right to Privacy in The Digital Age” conference on November 24 in Islamabad. Among the various issues discussed about privacy, surveillance and oversight, ‘Gendered surveillance – targeting women journalists’ was one of the most important one. The discussion revolved around how women need to support each other online and bring any harassment issue to light. The same issue led to the introduction of Cyber Harassment helpline.

DRF is a registered research based non-government organization (NGO) which focuses on information and communications technology (ICT) to support human rights, democratic processes and digital governance. It believes in online freedom of expression and rights to privacy for minorities, women and dissidents.