Sadaf Khan
Sadaf Khan is a feminist digital rights strategist, researcher and policy advocate who leads the Safety for Voices programme at APC. She is also the co-founder of Media Matters for Democracy, a leading digital and media rights civil society organisation in Pakistan. Her work at APC focuses on holistic security for women human rights defenders, feminist approaches to platform governance and human rights-based policy advocacy.
Sadaf has 20 years of experience working across media development, digital rights advocacy and internet governance in Pakistan and internationally, with a particular focus on the intersection of gender, technology and power. A key area of her focus is the gap between how digital safety frameworks are designed and how women and human rights defenders actually experience risk, and what safety-by design approaches, corporate accountability and community centred security practices can do to help close that gap.
Her research background includes leading Pakistan's national assessment under UNESCO's Internet Universality Indicators framework, evaluating the country's digital environment against over 300 indicators across rights, openness, accessibility and multistakeholder participation. She is also the lead author of Pakistan's National Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy, presented to the ITU Secretary-General in 2024, and serves on its steering committee, overseeing implementation.
Purpose of position
Safety for Voices (SfV) is a global South-based consortium led by APC in partnership with Urgent Action Fund Africa, Urgent Action Fund Asia and Pacific, and IM-Defensoras, working towards greater safety, both online and offline, for human rights defenders worldwide. As SfV manager, Sadaf provides strategic leadership towards the programme's objectives and manages and coordinates the consortium of partner organisations to ensure coherent, integrated implementation across regions and thematic areas. She drives APC's policy engagement on defenders' digital safety and coordinates allied networks working at the intersections of gender, technology and human rights.
