WASHINGTON: From the United States to Italy, Britain, and Pakistan, female politicians are increasingly becoming victims of AI-generated deepfake pornography or sexualized images, in a troubling trend that researchers say threatens women’s participation in public life.

An online boom in non-consensual deepfakes is outpacing efforts to regulate the technology globally, experts say, with a proliferation of cheap artificial intelligence tools including photo apps digitally undressing women.

The intimate imagery is often weaponized to tarnish the reputation of women in the public sphere, jeopardizing their careers, undermining public trust, and threatening national security by creating conditions for blackmail or harassment, researchers say.

In the United States, the American Sunlight Project, a disinformation research group, identified more than 35,000 instances of deepfake content depicting 26 members of Congress — 25 of them women — across pornographic sites.

A study published by the group last month showed that nearly one in six women in Congress have been victims of such AI-generated imagery.

“Female lawmakers are being targeted by AI-generated deepfake pornography at an alarming rate,” said Nina Jankowicz, chief executive of the ASP. “This isn’t just a tech problem — it’s a direct assault on women in leadership and democracy itself.”

ASP did not release the names of the female lawmakers depicted in the imagery to avoid public searches, but it said it privately notified their offices.

In the United Kingdom, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was among more than 30 British female politicians found to be targeted by a deepfake porn website, according to a Channel 4 investigation published last year.

The high-traction site, which was unnamed, appeared to use AI technology to “nudify” about a dozen of those politicians, turning their photos into naked images without their consent, it said.

The tech advancements have given rise to what researchers call an expanding cottage industry around AI-enhanced porn, where users can turn to widely available AI tools and apps to digitally strip off clothing from pictures or generate deepfakes using sexualized text-to-image prompts.

In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is seeking 100,000 euros ($102,950) in damages from two men accused of creating deepfake porn videos featuring her and posting them to American porn websites.

“This is a form of violence against women,” Meloni told a court last year, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.

“With the advent of artificial intelligence, if we allow the face of some woman to be superimposed on the body of another woman, our daughters will find themselves in these situations, which is exactly why I consider it legitimate to wage this war.”

In Pakistan, AFP’s fact-checkers debunked a deepfake video that showed lawmaker Meena Majeed publicly hugging an unrelated male minister, an act culturally deemed immoral in a conservative Muslim-majority nation.

In a separate episode, Azma Bukhari, the information minister of the Pakistani province of Punjab, said she felt “shattered” after discovering a deepfake video online that superimposed her face on the sexualized body of an Indian actor.

“The chilling effect of AI-generated images and videos used to harass women in politics is a growing phenomenon,” the nonprofit Tech Policy Press said last year, warning that the trend will have a “silencing effect on the political ambitions” of women.

The proliferation of deepfakes has outstripped regulation around the world.

Pakistan lacks legislation to combat sexualized deepfakes. UK laws criminalize sharing deepfake porn and the government has pledged to ban its creation this year, but so far no firm timetable has been laid out.

A handful of US states including California and Florida have passed laws making sexually explicit deepfakes a punishable offense and campaigners are calling on Congress to urgently pass a host of bills to regulate their creation and dissemination.

While high-profile politicians and celebrities, including singer Taylor Swift, have been victims of deepfake porn, experts say women not in the public eye are equally vulnerable.

After ASP notified the targeted US Congresswomen, the fake AI-generated imagery was almost entirely scraped from the websites, reflecting what it called a “disparity of privilege.”

“Women who lack the resources afforded to members of Congress would be unlikely to achieve such a rapid response from deepfake pornography sites if they initiated a takedown request themselves,” ASP said.

ISLAMABAD: Uzbekistan plans to launch direct flights to the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, Pakistani state media reported on Sunday, citing Uzbek Ambassador to Pakistan Alisher Tukhtaev.
The statement came amid Ambassador Tukhtaev's visit to Karachi this week, during which he addressed the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), Karachi Chambers of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), and members of the business community.
The ambassador highlighted the recent launch of direct flights between Tashkent and Lahore that underscored Uzbekistan’s commitment to fostering people-to-people contacts, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency reported.
“Our two nations are closer than ever, thanks to the realization of the long-awaited vision of regional connectivity,” the ambassador said, describing direct flights from Uzbekistan to Karachi as a "significant step" to foster closer ties.
The development comes amid Pakistan's efforts to consolidate its role as a pivotal trade and transit hub connecting the landlocked Central Asian states with the rest of the world, leveraging its strategic geographical position. There has been a flurry of visits, investment talks and economic activity between officials from Pakistan and the Central Asian nations in recent months.
In Feb. 2023, Pakistan and Uzbekistan signed a $1 billion deal to increase bilateral trade at the eighth meeting of the Inter-governmental Commission on Trade-Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation in Tashkent. The agreement was aimed at encouraging the exchange of goods and services.
Ambassador Tukhtaev shared that Uzbekistan implemented a soft visa regime for Pakistani citizens in September 2023, facilitating business and tourist travel. He said trade between Uzbekistan and Pakistan had tripled over the last few years, rising from $122 million in 2019 to $387 million in 2023.
He stressed the importance of untapped opportunities for further collaboration between the two countries, particularly in textiles, pharmaceuticals, leather and tannery, food processing, and agribusiness sectors, according to the APP report.
The Uzbek envoy commended the success of the “Made in Pakistan” single-country exhibition held in Tashkent in June 2024, which provided an invaluable platform for entrepreneurs from both nations to forge new trade and investment agreements. Building on this momentum, he announced plans for a “Made in Uzbekistan” industrial exhibition in Karachi later this year, expressing confidence that it would further strengthen economic ties.
“Uzbekistan offers a safe, conducive, and liberal environment for investment,” he stated, urging Pakistani businesses to capitalize on opportunities in various sectors and welcomed the idea of organizing business-to-business (B2B) meetings alongside business delegation visits to materialize trade and investment prospects.