<p>The cultural norms and caste systems of tribal communities make women vulnerable to the negative impacts of hydropower projects in Gilgit-Baltistan. This region is home to Indigenous (local) people with strong historical and cultural bonds and non-Indigenous (migrated) people who have recently settled in the area. Consequently, the impacts of these projects can vary between local and migrated women. In Gilgit-Baltistan, hydropower projects aim to achieve sustainable rural development and enhance women's satisfaction by integrating social justice parameters—distributive, procedural, substantive, and recognition justice. This study investigated the impact of these social justice components on sustainable rural development and women's satisfaction with hydropower projects for both local and migrated women. We collected data from 511 tribal women across eleven villages. We employed Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and Multigroup Analysis (MGA) to analyze the effects. The findings indicate that social justice positively influences sustainable rural development, mediating the relationship between social justice and women's satisfaction. Procedural justice had a more substantial effect on sustainable rural development for migrated women compared to local women, and its impact on women’s satisfaction also varied between these groups. Additionally, sustainable rural development greatly impacted women’s satisfaction with migrated women, highlighting differences based on tribal affiliations. Conversely, the distributive, substantive, and recognition justice impacts were similar across both groups. These results emphasize the need for hydropower projects to adopt culturally sensitive and community-specific strategies considering the distinct cultural and social dynamics to achieve sustainable rural development.</p>