‘ShishuShurokkha’: A Transformative Justice Approach for Combating Child Sexual Abuse in Bangladesh

Title of the Paper

‘ShishuShurokkha’: A Transformative Justice Approach for Combating Child Sexual Abuse in Bangladesh

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Social Computing and Child Safety
• Keywords: Child Sexual Abuse, Social Media, Solidarity, Gender Harassment, Bangladesh, ShishuShurokkha, Transformative Justice, Shame Design, Community-Driven Design

Research Background and Issues

• Problems and Challenges:

  • Child sexual abuse is a severe issue in Bangladesh, but due to cultural, legal, and social norms, most incidents go unreported.
  • Parents and guardians often suppress or ignore cases due to social stigma and fear.
  • Same-sex abuse is not widely acknowledged in society, making it even harder for victims and their guardians to identify and prevent such issues.

• Significance:

  • According to UNICEF data, over 200 million children globally become victims of sexual abuse each year.
  • Child sexual abuse causes long-term psychological, physical, and social impacts on victims and their families and reinforces oppressive norms regarding gender and children's rights in society.

• Research Motivation and Related Work:

  • Existing designs addressing child sexual abuse are largely focused on Western contexts, lacking adaptability for resource-constrained and socially conservative Global South countries.
  • The authors propose a transformative justice-based design approach tailored to the social realities of Bangladesh, aiming to address child sexual abuse through a community-centered solution.

Solution

• Proposed Method and Solution:

  • Developed an online tool named “ShishuShurokkha” (meaning child safety) based on the theories of “transformative justice” and “shame design,” aimed at fostering community engagement in combating child sexual abuse.
  • Core system features include anonymous reporting, case mapping visualization, provision of legal and medical support information, and raising community awareness through education.

• Innovative Aspects:

  • Shifts the design focus from victims to the entire community, establishing sustainable mechanisms for social reform by achieving social support and transformative justice.
  • Integrates cultural values and moral constraints, aligning the design with local ethical norms in Bangladesh.

• Implementation Steps and Technology:

  • Design Goals:
    1. Anonymously record abuse incidents, providing the community with analysis of case patterns and frequencies.
    2. Display region-based comparative case maps to encourage community self-reflection and action.
    3. Offer information on legal, medical, psychological, and social support.
    4. Enhance public awareness of child sexual abuse through educational modules.
  • Design Components:
    • Application: Includes anonymous reporting, case mapping, support corner, and guardian corner.
    • Server: Handles data storage and collaborates with community administrators.
    • Community Administrators: Elected individuals responsible for reviewing reports and ensuring system credibility.
  • Process Architecture:
    • Three main units: Submission Unit (users submit content), Processing Unit (content verified by the server and community administrators), and Information and Support Unit (displays case maps and support information).

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:

  • The prototype design met research expectations in terms of anonymity, social support, regional data visualization, and educational modules.
  • User evaluations recognized the tool’s potential to enhance community capacity to combat sexual abuse and provided suggestions for improvement.

• Advantages Over Existing Solutions:

  • ShishuShurokkha focuses more on community collective responsibility than traditional victim-centered designs, encouraging societal participation in addressing the issue.
  • Provides mechanisms for transparency and power distribution, reducing the burden on victims.

• Experimental or Evaluation Results:

  • User feedback highlighted the system’s effectiveness in anonymously recording and displaying abuse data, but suggested stronger privacy protection measures and more advanced user interface features.
  • Integration of social ethics and cultural values is crucial for further implementation.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:
    • Strong societal stigma around child sexual abuse in Bangladesh may limit user participation.
    • Trust issues with community administrators may affect the fairness of content review.
    • Insufficient coverage of same-sex abuse and the LGBTQ+ community.
  • Future Directions:
    • Improve anonymity protection (e.g., end-to-end encryption).
    • Enhance the credibility of community administrators through local elections.
    • Explore direct involvement of legal systems and schools in reporting.
    • Collaborate more closely with governments, NGOs, and religious leaders to strengthen social support networks.
    • Expand the design to better address awareness and responses to same-sex abuse.

Conclusion

This paper successfully integrates transformative justice and community-driven design principles to develop an innovative technological solution addressing child sexual abuse in Bangladesh. It not only provides a practical tool for achieving social mobility and justice but also proposes promising directions for further exploration in social design and technology research.