Members

Selected Challenge

Education

Solution

SHUUSH

Problem Statement
To design a product that allows students report cases of sexual abuse anonymously while also letting human rights activists and lawyers sign up as volunteers.

Background
Compared to Other Crimes, Sexual Violence Is More Prevalent on campuses. According to  Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, (RAINN), probably the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the world, 13% of all students experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation (among all graduate and undergraduate students).As outstanding as these figures however, the fact is that the majority of these Sexual abuse cases often go unreported because most victims of sexual assault on campus will never come forward, either due to shame and not wanting people to know or their lives to change, confusion, fear of retaliation, or lack of trust in the system which doesn’t make reporting comfortable. This means the perpetrators continue to roam free unpunished and able to make more victimsShuush is out to change this, by providing not just a platform where students’ cases of sexual abuse on campuses can be reported anonymously via a conversational interface which mimics the human chat experience, but also a network of legal and activist volunteers who after applying are vetted via a more one-on-one process. At a reporter’s request, these cases will then be taken up with campus law enforcements or to the national level by the volunteers who will reach out to get more facts. Shuush is also out to let students know that anyone can be a victim or perpetrator of sexual abuse regardless of gender, status, sexual orientation, tribe, ethnicity, mental and physical ability, or other identity markers

Challenges
Due to the nature of the topic, anonymous reporting may often be difficult to take up legally and much effort needs to be made to let victims feel secure enough to reveal some information that remains largely confidential. In cases where the victim emphasises the need to not reveal their identity to the volunteers, effort will be made to find similar cases levelled against particular perpetrators named.

Target Audience/ User Categories

• Students (or other People) reporting abuse either for themselves or for a student friend
• Human rights activists, Lawyers and potentially therapists who want to volunteer

MVP Features

• Students can report cases anonymously via a conversational chat interface
• People can learn some stats about Sexual abuse on campus
• People can Donate
• People can Sign up as Volunteers

Future Features

• Students (and other people) can learn tips on what to do in the case of sexual abuse
• Conversations can be continued from where stopped.
• Students can live chat with a therapist and book one-on-one sessions.
• Stories from Survivors

Solution Link

https://shuush.herokuapp.com/