Not Just Nudes: Why Cultural Understanding Matters

"Explicit Harms of Non-Explicit Images: Defining Image-Based Abuse in Pakistan and the Diaspora" Research by Chayn

"An image does not have to be nude to be harmful," says Hera Husain, Chayn founder, tech activist and author of Chayn's newest report on image based abuse. A powerful statement, and yet big tech companies and those that regulate our digital existence still don't fully understand what this means and women across the world bear the consequences.

Chayn's latest work focuses on a vital topic in today's digital world. As more and more of our lives become digital, so does how we present ourselves in those online spaces. And yet sometimes the choice of how we choose to share ourselves online is taken away from us, and not in good ways. For years, public conversations about image-based abuse have focused on so-called revenge pornography, deepfake nudes and sexually explicit content.

Focusing specifically on Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora, Chayn's report looks at the kinds of images outside of those categories that can be used to control, harass or harm victims online and why definitions of such abuse need to change within tech policies and regulations.

Cultural norms often dictate what is acceptable, and the report follows the stories of multiple women who's lives were harmed when images of them were shared online without consent, even though those images technically did not break any laws or meet the criteria set for being "explicit"

But in Pakistan, what’s intimate or honorable doesn’t get defined by global rules. A woman dancing at a wedding, talking to men at work, or wearing what is considered the wrong outfit can be enough for them to be shunned in their families or even put their lives at risk

The research catalogues the kinds of images women feared seeing shared: hair visible without a headscarf, Western or fitted clothing, a photograph taken beside a man who is not a relative, a screenshot of a fabricated conversation, or an image generated by AI from a single photo of someone's face. None contain nudity. All can be made to tell a damaging story.

Pakistani actress Ayesha Omar has a similar story. When images of her in a swimsuit and shorts were stolen from her laptop and shared without consent it had a massive impact on both her personal and work life. Yet no tech platform would take down such images because under their laws, they aren't harmful.

As a Pakistani and online harms expert, I'm often in rooms where tech companies and policymakers are discussing image-based abue. I was always raising experiences of how women in our culture face image-based abuse on everyday images by many outside the region. This cultural awareness has been missing from how companies are writing and enforcing community guidelines and in the laws being passed in countries in the West with a large proportion of south asian diaspora," Hera Hussain tells Echoes, adding, "So we decided to document these experiences so we can catalyse change in policy and product design. What Chayn wants to happen is for this issue to be seen through the lens of consent and harm, rather than how nude an image is, as that is based on principles that work across cultures."

To conduct this research, Chayn conducted 64 qualitative interviews between July 2025 and February 2026. These included 32 survivors of image-based abuse, 18 community participants (women and gender minorities from Pakistan and the diaspora), and 14 experts including lawyers, representatives of the criminal justice system, civil society actors, social media platform representatives, and activists working in the gender-based violence and digital rights spaces. Participants spanned every major region of Pakistan as well as diaspora communities in the UK, Canada, Germany, Malaysia, the UAE and Kuwait. Interviews were conducted in English, Urdu, and Punjabi. 

Their partners in Pakistan included Digital Rights Foundation and domestic violence resource platform, The Jugnu Project. Zohra Ahmed, founder of TJP, says in her line of work she’s seen countless cases of women being threatened by images and videos that can be used against them that they didn’t even know existed.

“It’s a rising threat”, she tells Echoes Media while adding “especially with teenagers, they send a one view image on snapchat and WhatsApp and there’s a lot of dangers to that. Those dangers are more prominently seen for women and girls.”

Chayn’s research shows that any image can become a weapon once it is in the wrong hands. What makes an image harmful is not what it shows, but whether there was consent to share it. Nude or ordinary, when an image is shared without consent the harm moves far beyond the survivor — into families, communities, and every part of a woman's life.

You can read the whole report along which includes suggestions for ways forward here.