Justice for Sana

It should be appalling that every few months, social media in Pakistan sees Hashtag Justice For....trending. Switch the names around. It won't matter. The story is mostly the same. A girl or a woman killed by a man. And so Pakistan has lost another girl, another life of promise. This time, it was a 17-year-old child – Sana Yousaf. A child with teenage dreams. A child who – much like most in her generation – used social media to show those dreams. Her murderer? Reportedly, a man she had rejected multiple times. Sana was not just a 'TikToker' as she has been labelled in her death; she was a human being. And now she is another name to add to the endless scroll of victims in a country that has normalised violence against women. The rapid police response, with the suspect Umar Hayat arrested within 20 hours, deserves recognition. The Islamabad police used surveillance footage, phone records and digital forensics to close in on the alleged killer swiftly. This diligence should be the norm, not the exception. But no speed of justice can compensate for the sickening familiarity of the story: a woman says no, and a man responds with fatal entitlement.

The details are deeply unsettling and reflect a culture that excuses male aggression and vilifies women for simply existing in public spaces – digital or otherwise. What has perhaps been most disturbing in the aftermath is the way Sana's identity has been handled, both by the media and by online commenters. Headlines labeled her “TikToker Sana Yousaf” as if to suggest her murder was somehow linked to her content creation, as though her online life somehow made her less deserving of empathy, or worse, culpable in her own death. And in the cesspools of comment sections, some dared to imply that her visibility, her confidence, her digital fame justified what happened.

This is not about social media. This is about a society where women – influencers or otherwise – cannot say 'no' without fearing for their lives. A country where men routinely believe they are owed attention, affection or obedience – and respond to rejection with acid, bullets, fists and shame. Over 54 million people use TikTok in Pakistan. Many of them are young, curious, expressive and female. That is not a threat to society. That is society evolving. But when girls step into the public eye, they do so in a country where the eye that watches them is too often predatory, judgmental and violent. And when that violence erupts, the victim is dissected – her morals questioned, her platform blamed, her death politicised. Let us be clear: Sana’s murder was not about modesty or media. It was about power, entitlement and misogyny. And it will not be the last, unless we collectively begin to call this epidemic what it is: repeated, predictable and preventable violence against women fueled by a mindset that continues to value male desire above female autonomy. Justice for Sana must not end with the arrest of her killer. It must include a reckoning with the systems that fail our women. It must mean safety protocols for women. It must mean education that teaches boys about consent, boundaries and respect. It must mean a media culture that does not reduce girls to hashtags and headlines. Sana Yousaf was a teenager with dreams. Her life mattered. And her death should haunt us into action.