Paper short abstract:

The pervasive gender-based-violence has remained an intrusion in sustainable pathways to development. However, access of victimized women to digital technology has turned out to be a significant factor in women's access to justice against violence, bridging gender-inequalities for just futures.

Paper long abstract:

Beyond the notion of connectivity and communication, Digital Technology renders itself as an obstruction in the nexus of violence-against-women, injustice for victims and impunity for perpetrators, thus perpetually hindering just pathways to development. Evidence from Punjab Pakistan reveals how Victimized-woman's Access-to-Technology turns out as a means for affected women to reach-out for justice. In the process of justice for VAW cases, reporting of violence is the most preliminary step, which requires connecting with and communicating the incident to law-enforcement agencies. Reporting is predominantly more of a challenge under patriarchy due to structural constraints of social acceptance of violence-against-women by men and inhibited mobility of women. Despite such an injustice breeding environment, access of victimized women to mobile phone significantly results in affected woman's ability to report the incident to law-enforcement. Such an impact of digital technology is transformative of the imbalance in gender-equalities. Evidence further reveals that where in patriarchy a man's perception of treating a woman prevails, women by having access to digital technology tend to disregard violence-justifying-attitude of men towards them and rather go on to repot the incident and seek justice for their safety and honor. Moreover, even if her decision to end victimhood is inhibited in cases where she knows the perpetrator and her own house is the assault-place and as she further gets intimidated by harassment and discrimination, digital technology goes all out to empowering her to access justice and report violence to law-enforcement.