Everyone can talk to Violetta. With just a message through WhatsApp, the chatbot quickly answers: “I’m here to give you the tools you need to create relationships free of violence.” Although Violetta cannot be seen or touched, she has accompanied 260,000 anonymous users in Mexico during the last year. The chatbot is one of several projects with artificial intelligence (AI) that have been created to address sexist violence, a structural problem that affects one in three women in the world. Tens of thousands of users have turned to technology to seek help, since shame, fear of being judged and not having a family environment to accompany them in their reporting process stops many women from taking the first step out of the spiral. of violence in which they are immersed.
“More than a chatbot, I am your digital confidant,” says Violetta, which was launched by Floretta Mayerson, Sara Kalach, Sasha Glatt and Carla Pilgram during confinement due to Covid 19. At that time, there was a saturation of the telephone lines of support against gender violence and hundreds of homes were no longer safe spaces in a country that suffers more than 3,000 murders of women a year. Macarena Estefan, director of Psychology at Violetta, explains that the goal of the chatbot is to be “that bridge that facilitates the listening process,” since the founders realized that many people turned to search engines like Google to resolve their doubts, even before vent to a human. “A victim can take from one to five years to speak,” he emphasizes.
Violetta is the first machine learning model in Spanish, as it is a supervised and non-generative AI (like ChatGPT), which is based on a set of data and uses specific algorithms. This civil association channels users – more than 70% young and adult women – who are experiencing extreme situations with the Violet Line, which is supported by a team made up exclusively of therapists.
Since then, the chatbot has managed to direct 40,000 people to specialists, although they also offer contacts from legal institutions. For its part, Sophia Chata chatbot from the Swiss NGO Spring Acts that also emerged during the pandemic, has helped 14,000 victims of violence since its launch. Founder and CEO Rhiana Spring works with a team of social workers, psychologists, programmers and lawyers who have trained Sophia. “We started Sophia three years before ChatGPT became a global phenomenon. There are many important differences, as it does not ask you to log in and the bot’s information is accurate. “We work with a verified database,” he says.
In 2022, Sophia landed in Peru due to its high rates of gender violence, where more than half women has experienced some type of physical and psychological aggression. The chatbot is capable of communicating in Spanish and Quechua: “Hello! Could you give me more details on how I can help you today? “I am here to offer information and support.” Its database includes institutions such as the Women’s Emergency Center (CEM), the National Police of Peru and other services.
The virtual assistant Sarah It arrived in the Dominican Republic in 2023 to help women, girls and adolescents who are victims of sexist violence. One year later, Maria He did it in Honduras. In both countries, with the highest rates of femicides in Latin America, the start-up Alicante 1MillionBot developed these chatbots to adapt them to local contexts in alliance with the United Nations Development Program.
Sara has directed more than 3,000 users with public institutions and Dominican shelters. Raquel Pomerales, production director of the start-up who coordinates Sara and María, says that they are focused on improving the quality of information on gender violence: “We find it a powerful tool and the educational purposes of the chatbot are undeniable.”
Macarena Estefan is emphatic in emphasizing that chatbots are great digital tools, “but in other cases it is very important that people talk to a professional.” “We know the limitations of this technology,” he adds. Violetta, Sophia, Sara and María do not share user information to maintain anonymity and can be used on a computer or via WhatsApp and Telegram messaging.
AinoAid soon in Spain
The Local Police of Valencia (PLV), in Spain, is perfecting AinoAida chatbot created in Finland in 2021 within the framework of the Improve project, which receives funding from the European Union. AinoAid is in the process of testing, absorbing information and, above all, exercising with interactions. José Luis Diego, inspector of PLV’s Innovation and Research area, acknowledges that it has given him a lot of work. “We are in translation work, we need the tool to be 100% accessible,” he points out. The team is in the most complex phase, which will culminate with the presentation of a first prototype in November of this year. In Spain, the number of women victims of gender violence increased by 12.1% in 2023, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics.
Anna Juusela is CEO of WeEncourage, one of the project partners that originally developed AinoAid, which helps 600 monthly users. “Victims need support and it is not possible to help them from a single front. The chatbot does not replace humans, because we need professionals from the health area to the police sector,” he reflects. This digital tool, which is present in 12 countries such as Germany, France and Portugal, focuses on providing police with knowledge to improve their response. Along these lines, Joachim Kersten, one of the coordinators of Improve, believes that officers “find it difficult to address gender violence because they are generally not qualified.”
The Valencia Innovation area has had advice from the Gender Unit of the PLV, which has more than 700 women under protection. The coordinator of the Abuse Care Group (Gama), Estefanía Navarrete, remembers that during the pandemic they detected many cases of women who were locked up with their attacker. This situation made them begin to consider other means of communication with them.
“The first thing I thought about when I heard about the chatbot was all the women we can’t contact and who don’t dare tell a police officer in a police station what’s happening to them. The chatbot can guide them to take those first steps,” he says. AinoAid, according to Navarrete, will have risk notifications that will allow it to connect with those women who are experiencing a situation that endangers their life.
“Aggressors protect their aggression to eliminate any means of escape. Many women have children in common and the idea is to give them bridges,” she develops. Diego, from the PLV, believes that the bot will help identify “cases early.” “We will be able to detect this hidden figure and thus improve our police response,” he says.
AI in complaints of sexist violence
The Gender Data Observatory, in Argentina, developed AymurAIan AI to review judicial sentences of gender violence. Ivana Feldfeber, director of the project, says that the main idea is to collect anonymous information to better understand how justice operates in these cases. “We were interested in understanding what was happening in the judiciary, because we know that there are many women who report, go to trial and then the case comes to nothing,” she says. AymurAI reviews court rulings, extracting valuable information about the management of these cases, the decisions made, and the protection measures for victims. So far, the software has analyzed 10,000 sentences.
For Feldeber, the lack of transparency in the judicial treatment of sexist violence translates into low levels of reporting and distrust in the courts. “We know that it is complex to report and the women who do so do so because they also have a support network and there are witnesses who can testify in their favor,” she emphasizes. AymurAI collaborates with the Criminal Court number 10 of the province of Buenos Aires and will soon land in Mexico.
“Many women are not granted requests for precautionary measures, preventive detention or to comply with the alimony quota. Many judges decide not to give rise to these requests and rule in a very sexist way against women,” summarizes Feldeber.
The project receives financing from international funds and is part of the Feminist AI Research Network (FAIR), a global network of scientists, economists and activists whose purpose is to make AI and related technologies inclusive and transformative. There are other initiatives related to, for example, digital gender violence —like the Chilean chatbot SOF+IA— and harassment on public transportation with the SafeHER app, designed in the Philippines.
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