Harassment impacts the safety and well-being of young adults in Pakistan. Prior research has largely focused on women, often imposing external definitions of harm and overlooking how individuals themselves understand and respond to harassment. This study examines how Pakistani young adults define, experience, and cope with harassment. Drawing on 33 semi-structured interviews guided by a human-centered threat modeling framework, we surface context-specific threat models. Participants’ definitions of harassment were shaped by gender norms, religious values, and moral judgments. Women described harassment as a routine part of life, tied to public visibility, modesty norms. Men also reported harassment, though framed by different dynamics such as pressure to maintain control, avoid vulnerability, and conform to masculinity. Across participants, formal reporting pathways were viewed as untrustworthy or unsafe. Our findings highlight the need for interventions that reflect local definitions of harm, address relational adversaries, and support safety within sociocultural contexts.

Non-Consensual Image-Disclosure Abuse (NCIDA) represents a subset of technology-facilitated sexual abuse where imagery and video with romantic or sexual connotations are used to control, extort, and otherwise harm victims. Despite considerable research on NCIDA, little is known about them in non-Western contexts. We investigate NCIDA in Pakistan, through interviews with victims, their relatives, and investigative officers; and observations of NCIDA cases being processed at a law enforcement agency. We find, first, that what constitutes NCIDA is much broader in Pakistan’s patriarchal society, and that its effects can be more severe than in Western contexts. On every dimension – types of content, perpetrators, impact on victims, and desired response by victims – our findings suggest an expansion of the concepts associated with NCIDA. We conclude by making technical and policy-level recommendations, both to address the specific context of Pakistan, and to enable a more global conception of NCIDA.

This paper presents findings from an empirical study that uncovers the economic, psychological, and socio-cultural adaptation strategies used by recent Afghan refugees in a midwestern U.S. state. Through 14 semi-structured interviews conducted between February and April 2023, this study investigates how Afghan refugees utilize technology, tools, and skills in their resettlement process, and builds upon Hsiao et al.'s conceptualization of sociotechnical adaptation. The findings reveal (i) gender and collectivist cultural values play a big role in determining the types of adaptation strategies used by men versus women, (ii) strategic choices in terms of the type of support sought depending on shared versus non-shared identity of host community members, (iii) a notable tension between economic adaptation and preserving socio-cultural values is observed, and (iv) creative, collective solutions by women participants to address economic challenges, contributing to the discourse on solidarity economies in HCI. Key contributions include (a) design implications for technological products that can aid in psychological adaptation, fostering solidarity economies, and creating digital safe spaces for refugees to connect with shared-identity host populations, and (b) policy and program recommendations for refugee resettlement agencies to enhance digital literacy among refugees.

Online harassment is a global problem. This article examines perceptions of harm and preferences for remedies associated with online harassment with nearly 4000 participants in 14 countries around the world. The countries in this work reflect a range of identities and values, with a focus on those outside of North American and European contexts. Results show that perceptions of harm are higher among participants from all countries studied compared to the United States. Non-consensual sharing of sexual photos is consistently rated as harmful in all countries, while insults and rumors are perceived as more harmful in non-U.S. countries, especially harm to family reputation. Lower trust in other people and lower trust in sense of safety in one’s neighborhood correlate with increased perceptions of harm of online harassment. In terms of remedies, participants in most countries prefer monetary compensation, apologies, and publicly revealing offender’s identities compared to the U.S. Social media platform design and policy must consider regional values and norms, which may depart from U.S. centric-approaches.

Social media platforms aspire to create online experiences where users can participate safely and equitably. However, women around the world experience widespread online harassment, including insults, stalking, aggression, threats, and non-consensual sharing of sexual photos. This article describes women's perceptions of harm associated with online harassment and preferred platform responses to that harm. We conducted a survey in 14 geographic regions around the world (N = 3,993), focusing on regions whose perspectives have been insufficiently elevated in social media governance decisions (e.g. Mongolia, Cameroon). Results show that, on average, women perceive greater harm associated with online harassment than men, especially for non-consensual image sharing. Women also prefer most platform responses compared to men, especially removing content and banning users; however, women are less favorable towards payment as a response. Addressing global gender-based violence online requires understanding how women experience online harms and how they wish for it to be addressed. This is especially important given that the people who build and govern technology are not typically those who are most likely to experience online harms.

Front-line workers in global development are often responsible for data collection and record-keeping about their own work. The authenticity of such data and the role of mid-level supervisors, however, remains understudied. We report on the case of immunization in Pakistan, where, through interviews with 30 mid-level vaccination managers in Punjab district, we find that data falsification by vaccinators is common, though not necessarily rampant. Because of an intricate protocol for record-keeping, supervisors can detect data falsification, and we find they have devised an array of methods, broadly classifiable into four types: triangulation, supplementary data collection, anomaly detection, and interrogation. We also find that the strategies that supervisors use to detect falsification seem linked to their style of management, with authoritarian supervisors preferring supplementary data collection and spot checks, while supportive supervisors use triangulation. Our findings lead to recommendations for designing technologies intended to monitor and manage front-line data.

We present findings from a three country study exploring the intersection between female intimate health and religious beliefs. Through a qualitative study with Muslim female populations in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia, three different Muslim majority contexts, we examine the deep impact Islamic beliefs have on female intimate health and well-being. Our study investigates the perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of Muslim women to their own intimate and sexual bodies through their experiences of menarche, marriage and reproduction and menopause. The intersection of religion and female sexual bodies and health is a neglected area within HCI and we highlight how inextricably specific Islamic values are linked with women’s reproductive health in Muslim communities. We further discuss the opportunities and challenges of designing technologies for religious, non-secular beliefs and values with the aim to improve intimate health practices amongst Muslim women and to broaden the scope of health design within HCI.

We examine the opportunities and challenges in designing for maternal health in low-income, low-resource communities in patriarchal and religious contexts. Pakistan faces a crisis in maternal health with a maternal mortality ratio of 178 deaths per 100,000 live births, as compared to the developed-country average of just 12 deaths per 100,000. Through a 6-month long qualitative, empirical study we examine the prevalent beliefs and practices around maternal health in Pakistan, the access women have to health-care, the existing religious practices that influence them and the agency they exert in their own health-care decision making. We reveal the rampant misinformation among mothers and health workers, house-hold power dynamics that impact maternal health and the deep link between maternal health and religious beliefs. We also show how current maternal health care interventions fit poorly into this context and discuss alternate design recommendations for meeting the maternal health needs of these women.

This paper explores a possible use-case of creating an integrated multiuser-multidevice interaction (2MUDI) model in IoT collectives, in particular, in an aged care centre environment. A prototype has been designed and developed, which has given a name KATE. The system comprises Internet-connected robot(s), multiple mobile devices and multiple users. Family members of the seniors admitted to aged care centres can monitor the seniors via the robot. Staff members, including doctors and nurses, who look after these seniors can also interact with and use the robot(s). This data can also be accessible by family members via an application on their mobile devices. This work has modelled complex interactions and considered the implementation challenges, societal implications in a 2MUDI system and demonstrate its applicability with the KATE system.

South Asia faces one of the largest gender gaps online globally, and online safety is one of the main barriers to gender-equitable Internet access [GSMA, 2015]. To better understand the gendered risks and coping practices online in South Asia, we present a qualitative study of the online abuse experiences and coping practices of 199 people who identified as women and 6 NGO staff from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, using a feminist analysis. We found that a majority of our participants regularly contended with online abuse, experiencing three major abuse types: cyberstalking, impersonation, and personal content leakages. Consequences of abuse included emotional harm, reputation damage, and physical and sexual violence. Participants coped through informal channels rather than through technological protections or law enforcement. Altogether, our findings point to opportunities for designs, policies, and algorithms to improve women's safety online in South Asia.

Religious donations are a very significant financial resource, and mosques as places of worship and as religious institutions, play a strong role in collecting such donations. This is especially true in developing countries, where cash-based donations are commonplace. In this paper, through 8 semi-structured interviews with mosque leaders (Imams) and finance secretaries, and three religious and government leaders, we present qualitative findings about various donation mechanisms and the religious and legal regulations governing such transactions. We then use these findings to present suggestions for a mobile-based application that digitizes the donation mechanism for local mosques.

This Research discusses the problems faced by small scale farmers in Nathoke Village, Lahore, Pakistan and propose a solution to alleviate their problems. Research propose to integrate a small-service solution in an application, Meri Zameen already working and helping farmers in the fields in Punjab, Pakistan developed by Pakistan Information Technology Board. Agriculture Agents in Punjab inform farmers about modern techniques of farming and help them in acquiring them through this application and their experience. The research also puts the artiya, beyopari and fellow farmers, in light and shows how they play as a protagonist and antagonist in manipulating the decision making of farmers.

This paper describes the design process by which we designed an Android application equipped with audio, textual menus and visuals components for use by farmers of diverse literacy levels looking for vital weather information after the conclusion of research-work that productivity lags due to information inadequacies. The intervention provides more timely access to accurate information to low-literate farmers and thereby help in making the agricultural ecosystem more robust. We discuss the various design and implementation features of our system and presents our findings from the field on the usability of our application. We have also openly released our source code so that other users and developers can also benefit from our work.

The purpose of this research is to identify the issues regarding organ donation. The aspects explored in this research are cultural, religious and traditional concepts, which affect the whole process of organ donation and transplantation in Pakistan. We concluded, most of the people including patients have concerns regarding trust and the unavailability of the organs. To address the issues a transparent technical platform is needed which will connect the donor, recipients, and physicians directly where hospital management will mediate between them.

Despite having smart phones penetration, low literate novice users are still facing issues while using smart phone applications. There is a dire need to design customized application for such users to engage them actively in the digital world. In this paper, we share the design, development, and testing of an application with low literate novice users. Our research revolves around designing appropriate interfaces for low literate novice users with a focus on selection and scrolling usability. Our major findings include that using real hand gestures as animations help to explain things to low literate novice users is not recommended. This paper also revalidated the use of audio prompts as a help to complete the navigation in the application. This paper investigates some of the features and its adaptation that should be included while designing an application for low literate users. These features adaptations are for the actions of selection, scrolling, and navigation

We present a three-phase exploration of mobile messaging to address the high rate of maternal mortality in low-income, urban Pakistan, with a focus on identifying deviations from previously published findings about mobile interventions in developing-world health.

Pakistan's agricultural sector has been making gigantic contributions towards the nation's economy, with agriculture accounting for 22% of the gross domestic product (GDP) while engaging approximately half of the country's labor force. A significant developmental challenge in this sector is inadequacy and inaccessibility of information regarding weather forecast. In this paper, we propose an Android-based solution for farmers that can facilitate the timely, localized, and customized dissemination of granular weather forecast that shields the whole agricultural ecosystem and supply chain from weather variability by appropriate decision-making. We describe our Android mobile application that sends a customized weather forecast that is configured according to the user preferences. Information is disseminated by the cloud server through encrypted SMS to the subscribing farmers containing weather information. This information is encoded through visuals and icons in a simple to understand user-interface that is accompanied by Urdu language text in a design tailored for low-literate farmers of Pakistan. The testing, feedback, and evaluation include design understanding, the effectiveness of icons and images, usability, adaptation to touch screen is in progress which will help us to reiterate the mobile app user interface (UI) to improve the preliminary design.

Lady Health Visitors (LHVs) are among the pioneers of primary healthcare provision at the community level in Pakistan. At health care facility level, along with other roles they are responsible for overall maternal health. This paper examines the difference in knowledge of LHVs through animated video based learning, using a pre- and post- video question based testing. We conclude that there was significant increase in knowledge of participated LHVs related to the medicinal management of Pre-eclampsia and Eclampsia in pregnant women.

This paper highlights some of the challenges associated with the current paper-based immunization health card being used in the Punjab province of Pakistan, and further discusses an iterative approach to redesign this card to be more informative for parents in general with a special focus on a low-literate audience. The discussion builds upon user discussion and resulting need analysis for the redesign of the card. The paper details the technical and design aspects of three iterations of the card and their respective feedback. It also highlights some of the challenges associated with designing a solution for multiple stakeholders in a constrained environment.