(Alicante, May 7, 2023, The Daily) The United Nations Development Program has the Chatbot „Sara“ selected for its program to assist women and girls in gender-based violence cases. The free service was developed by the Spanish company 1MillionBot and is initially available in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.
The chatbot provides victims with information on offers of help, legal support and emergency contacts. In this way, Sara represents a first, safe, anonymous and confidential contact. The chatbot gives women the opportunity to understand their situation and to make use of state or civil society help in their country.
There are many questions that Sara can answer. They range from the process of identifying gender-based violence to decision support: Can the victim move out of the home? Is it entitled to a lawyer? What can you do if you are a victim of abuse at work? What if your partner asks for passwords, for example to search the cell phone?
1MillionBot CEO Celia Sánchez highlighted the importance of Sara providing anonymous help. “It helps to break the barrier that you are alone,” she says, because many affected women find themselves alone in their situation. “Anonymity helps women take a first step towards help. That Sara is a machine removes any feelings of shame or fear. That way you’re much more likely to share your doubts,” she explains to the Efe news agency.
Another key feature of the chatbot is that it works online without users having to download or install anything on their phone or computer. Furthermore, Sara does not store any personal data and automatically deletes the conversation when the chat is closed.
Raquel Pomares, the Spanish company’s production manager, told Efe that the virtual tool will be “trained” by experts from the six Central American countries. In this way, the team ensures that Sara gives information according to the context. In addition, Sara should make the right choice of words, adapted to local language peculiarities. The goal: “Chatting with Sara should be practically as easy as texting with friends on any platform”.
Chatbot aims to help victims of gender-based violence von News Pool Latin America is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 international.