The vanishing women in journalism
It was 2021. Faiqa Zafar found herself at a crossroads once again after the weight of intermediate exams was off her shoulders. But this time around, she already knew journalism was her pursuit.
It was the same year that, under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, Pakistan fell to 145 out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, down from 139 in 2018.
“When I began my bachelor’s degree, the situation in the country was going downhill, and journalists were treated brutally. Some were going missing, while others were receiving death threats,” she recalls the contemplation that occupied her during her freshman year at a private university in Lahore.
“It made me realise that this was not going to be a safe profession for me to pursue. There was no protection, and freedom of speech was not guaranteed.” Faiqa then decided to switch her path and opted to major in public relations and advertising.
Four years later, when she graduated in 2025, Pakistan plummeted 13 places to 158 after the elections. Meanwhile, the 24-year-old graduate is on a job hunt for a sustainable career path, with the eventual goal of leaving the country to pursue higher studies.
Faiqa’s once long-held passion for journalism has faded into a distant dream.
Where are the women in journalism?
The International Labour Organisation’s data from March 2025 shows that only 22 per cent of women in Pakistan are in the labour force, compared with 81 per cent of men across the country.
The numbers, when narrowed down to the media industry, the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) 2025 Global Report reveals a sharp decline and continued stagnation in gender representation.
The number of women among reporters has fallen from 16 per cent in 2020 to a troubling four per cent in 2025. The stark decline includes underrepresentation of women as experts or commentators, particularly in coverage of government, politics, and the economy.
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This follows the persistent absence of women from news coverage, as they reportedly made up only 13.28 per cent of people featured in news stories, dropping from 18.3 per cent in 2020. Notably, every story centring on women as a news subject was reported by a man.
These numbers coincide with the long-standing unresolved gender inequalities in newsrooms, intertwined with discrimination in public and domestic spaces — all of which are now compounded by the expansion of the digital realm.
Unwelcomed in newsrooms
Islamabad-based climate journalist Farida* began her career more than a decade ago with a goal to focus on underrepresented communities, but surviving within the newsroom was a major challenge to grapple with.
“Early in my career, some colleagues openly mocked my abilities in video reporting and fieldwork, often passing sexist remarks like ‘larki hai, khud hi chhor de gi’ [‘she’s a girl, she will quit’],” she recalls.
The “unwelcoming” environment carried over into one of the leading media platforms, where she was under constant “mental pressure and discouragement” from a senior supervisor. “Instead of mentorship, there was constant criticism and emotional stress, which affected my confidence and growth.”
A 2024 report by the Women’s Media Forum Pakistan (WMFP) underlines deep structural barriers faced by women journalists within media houses, particularly in Balochistan.
In Balochistan, journalism already comes with baggage, which includes security threats and heavy surveillance.
Afrozeh* was a beginner in the field, joining in January 2025. She explains that not only is women’s participation in the province low, but with men in greater numbers, women are hardly given support or facilitation.
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“I got pregnant a few months after starting my job. I felt it was best not to leave despite my poor health. But in the last trimester, my doctor advised bed rest. I made multiple requests to the office for some time off, but they advised me to quit. They told me that even after having my child, I would have to leave the job,” she narrates.
Disheartened and seeing no other option but to prioritise her health, she decided to leave her job.
The WMFP report notes that the media industry lacks basic, gender-specific facilities such as daycare to facilitate mothers at work. Many offices also fail to provide separate, safe toilets for women, which has led to health concerns as well as harassment. To avoid setting up separate facilities, some media organisations choose not to hire women at all.
“Why was I being considered weaker than warranted instead of being supported?” Afrozeh questions.
Reporting from the peripheries
Shukria Ismail’s battle began at home. A young Pashtun aspirant from Khurram, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, was “half-heartedly” supported by her family to pursue journalism.
At 22, she joined a news platform as a digital reporter in 2022, juggling work pressures and personal struggles. Workplace politics added to the stress, and she eventually resigned to intern at a mainstream news organisation.
“The internship was unpaid, but with no office politics. I spent my time learning from senior reporters in the field,” she remembers.
It was not long, however, before her ethnic identity became a target of harassment. As a Pashtun, she was mocked for her accent and linguistic skills by her colleagues, who often added “inappropriate” remarks about her personal life.
“None of the harassment silenced me,” Ismail asserts.
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But soon, her hope of working on-screen was shattered when ethnic discrimination followed her in her next job. Disillusioned by the treatment of women in the industry, she began to question her future in journalism.
“Each year, a small number of women enter journalism from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, only to leave within a year, replaced by a new batch. The question is: where do these women go, and why do they leave?” Ismail seeks to understand.
Back in Balochistan, as Afrozeh looks after her one-month-old baby, she carries a hope to return to the field, but her expectations remain low.
“People who are doing journalism in Pakistan, especially in Balochistan, can only do so if it is their personal passion,” she says.
Enter cyberattacks and draconian laws
The rapid expansion of social media and digital news platforms began exacerbating the already hostile environment for women in journalism in 2020, when COVID hit the world and the virtual space became the centre. For journalists, what started as online harassment gradually grew into organised digital and physical attacks, human rights groups note.
Women journalists in Pakistan, especially those reporting on politics and the military, are often targeted by coordinated troll networks linked to political actors. In 2024, the Digital Rights Foundation reported a rise in AI-generated, sexualised deepfakes targeting women journalists covering sensitive political issues.
These attacks are intended to shame them and force them off digital platforms, particularly discouraging them from opting for high-stakes beats. According to the GMMP 2025 Global Report, women in social and legal news increased from 14 per cent in 2020 to 20 per cent.
Having broken tribal barriers by studying at a university and then pursuing her career, Shukria Ismail had also triggered resentment within her own community.
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“I was targeted through coordinated attacks, including identity smearing, false ethnic labelling, and digitally manipulated content circulated within family and tribal networks,” she recalls, still recovering from the trauma it brought her.
Ismail has since stepped away from the field and focused on healing, undergoing psychotherapy and receiving medical treatment.
For now, journalism is a chapter she is forced to close — not because of a lack of passion, but due to the high cost of staying.
Research by Media Matters for Democracy has found that 90 per cent of women journalists practise self-censorship, with many leaving social media altogether to protect their mental health, thereby reducing women’s voices in public discourse.
Sustaining media houses
Like much of the media industry around the world, journalism in Pakistan has long lacked institutional support and financial stability.
In 2020, Farida finally decided to take a stable job for a better living, continuing journalism part-time to maintain her passion. While she had found a conducive working environment, “continuous pay issues and limited professional backing” forced her to leave journalism as a full-timer.
“Full-time newsroom roles were increasingly becoming financially unsustainable,” she explains.
Drawing on her background in International Relations and Speech Therapy, she now works with children with special needs and speech delays in partnership with a professional organisation.
Strict media regulations in 2025 have only worsened these challenges for media houses, many of which are trying to develop viable business models for survival. Women in Pakistan already earn 25–30 per cent less than men, with some estimates putting the gap at 34 per cent.
In November, Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Attaullah Tarar announced job placements for 37 employees laid off at a Dubai-based digital news platform within a year of its launch in Pakistan.
Ironically, in the same month, one of the country’s oldest media groups shut down its Urdu digital platform, terminating 12 employees in December after the suspension of federal and provincial government advertisements. This followed the earlier closure of its magazine in August.
Meanwhile, another mainstream media organisation laid off more than 200 employees across its outlets in May and June, with unions reporting that the affected workers received neither notice nor severance pay.
Among the many media workers terminated in the past year was Shazmeen*.
In November, after a year with the company, the chief correspondent — with nearly two decades of experience — planned to utilise her annual leave and go on a vacation to rewire. But one morning, as she went to work, she was handed a termination letter following a brief five-minute meeting, with no reason provided.
“It takes years to build a career. I never took time for myself or a break from work all these years. The nature of journalism makes you get attached to the work, the people, the stories. It’s not your typical 9-to-5 job,” she explains.
“I don’t see my future in journalism anymore,” she adds, still waiting for her gratuity clearance.
Shazmeen now plans on moving into documentary filmmaking and has applied for a PhD to take her career in a new direction.
Names of female journalists have been changed to protect their identities