‘AI aunt’ app built for domestic abuse survivors in South Africa

A horrific killing in her own family inspired Leonora Tina, a South African woman, to create an AI Aunt app, so women can safely talk about abuse.

According to BCC News on November 6, Leonora’s relative was just 19 years old and nine months pregnant when she was killed, and her body was dumped at the side of a highway near Cape Town in 2020.

The killer was never caught, and the urgency for justice in the media was minimal. Leonora recalled that “what stood out for me was that my family member’s violent death was seen as so normal in South African society.”

“Her death wasn’t published by any news outlet because the sheer volume of these cases in our country is such that it doesn’t qualify as news” she explained. Lenora also warned that the criminal justice system does not bring adequate closure.

Crime rates in South Africa  are considerably high. For example, a child go missing every five hours, with 23% of such cases resulting in permanent disappearance, human trafficking, or death.

After becoming conscious of South Africa’s silent acceptance of gender based violence against women, Lenora created an app called Gender Rights in Tech (Grit), which features a Chatbot called Zuzi.

This app is one of the first free AI tools created by African developers to tackle gender based violence. “This is an African solution co-designed with African communities”, says Leonora.

The aim of this app for Leonora is to offer support where it may not be available to some people, and to gather evidence that can later be used in court against abusers.

Leonora and her small team went to communities and spoke with people to learn more about their experiences of abuse and how social media plays a part in their lives.

They spoke with over 800 victims of abuse and uncovered that despite their desire to speak out about their experiences, victims hold widespread scepticism towards using “traditional routes like the police.”

Violence and abuse are not only overlooked in domestic violence situations, but it has also occurred in schools in South Africa. On October 22nd, a boy who had recently completed his chemotherapy for cancer was assaulted by several pupils, who used hockey sticks and pipes to brutally attack him.

Leonora is clear that the use of AI to tackle gender based violence not only depends on engineering but also on the competence of those who design the technology.

In 2018, it was found that only 22% of AI professionals globally were women. Leonora says that “the answer is not only about having more women creators. We also need creators who are women of colour, more from the global south and more from less privileged socio–economic backgrounds.”

BBC News, Maghrebi.org