He United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has selected a sophisticated Spanish virtual digital assistant (chatbot) to help women, girls and adolescents who are victims of sexist violence in half a dozen countries of Central America and the Caribbean.
Created by the technology company 1MillionBot, it is based on artificial intelligence, it is free and it is called Sara.
The objective is to detect situations of abuse and guide the victims of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and the Dominican Republic with useful and quality information specific to each country in terms of social and support services, legal advice and also useful services, such as telephone numbers for attention and emergency.
Among the questions posed to Sara about an alleged abuse are whether a victim of gender violence can leave home, if you have the right to a lawyer suffering from one of these episodes, what to do if you are subjected to abuse at work or what to respond when the couple demands the passwords of the devices or electronic programs.
The executive director of 1MillionBot, Celia Sánchez, explained to EFE that a part of the women are not aware that they are suffering from sexist violence and there are others who fear going to the doctor or a social worker to communicate what they are suffering.
For this reason, the anonymity offered by this chatbot is an “ally” that “helps break the barrier of isolation and facilitates the first step on the road to getting help.”
“With an anonymous machine, there is no possible feeling of shame or fear, and you feel more capable of sharing your doubts,” he says. Thus, the victim easily accesses quality information without leaving a trace on the computer so that, first of all, they are aware that they are being abused and then receive guidance on how to act.
The Spanish company won in 2021 the tender for United Nations for this project, which is accessible on the chatbotsara.org website, and which uses its own language variants in each of the countries to offer close treatment, according to the company’s Production Director, Raquel Pomares.
This virtual tool receives “training” by experts from the six countries chosen to ensure that the information responds to the context and language of each place, so that in practice talking with Sara “is as easy as doing it with friends on any platform.” .
It works online, without the need to download or install anything on your cell phone or computer, it does not store personal data and it deletes the conversation when you close the session.