Night dad grew up in a conservative family in Jhang, in Pakistan’s Punjab province. The threat of early marriage hung over her childhood like a cloud. But despite their traditional values, Dad’s parents were determined that all their children should get an education and moved the family to Karachi so that she could complete her undergraduate degree. “I never thought I would work because I was never taught that we could work and be independent,” she says. “We always needed permission to do something.”
Dad thought that a master’s in law might delay the inevitable engagement, but soon after she finished the course, she found out that her parents had arranged a marriage for her. She didn’t mind her new life of domestic duties in a household she describes as “lower middle class”—i.e. until the violence started. “Then my legal education reminded me that this was wrong,” she says. “Our laws, our constitution, everything protects me, so why did I face this? Why did I put up with it?’
With the support of his family, Dad left his husband and filed for divorce. But after years of domestic violence and abuse and no work experience, she struggled with a lack of confidence. “I had no idea that women who are divorced and have a child face such difficulties in a society like ours,” she says. When her ex-husband filed for custody of their 2-month-old baby, Dad wasn’t sure how he was going to pay a lawyer. Then her father reminded her that she was also a lawyer.
Dad used her degree to win custody of her only child. In the process, she realized how many women in Pakistan faced years of violence and systemic injustice. But what worried her most was the digital divide.
Before her marriage, Dad’s family never allowed her access to her own cell phone, and when she finally got one, her husband used it as a surveillance tool—monitoring who she was calling and who was texting her. She had an escape tool in her hand, but she couldn’t use it. “Going through it myself made me realize how fast technology is moving and how it’s creating virtual spaces for marginalized communities that may not have access to physical ones,” she says. “Encountering these limitations made me realize how important it is to challenge societal norms and structures around women’s access to technology and the Internet so that they can use it as freely as men.”
In 2012 Dad founded the Digital Rights Foundation, an NGO that aims to address the digital divide and fight online abuse of women and other gender minorities in Pakistan. She began by helping women who contacted the organization, providing advice on digital safety and emotional and mental support. In 2016 – the same year Pakistan finally passed legislation against online crime – Dad and her team launched a cyberbullying hotline. Since 2016 so far, it has dealt with more than 16,000 complaints from all over the country. “Sometimes the police would give our phone numbers to victims looking for reliable help,” she says.
