– This new platform offers automated conversations on four main topics: migrants in Mexico, sexual violence, safe abortion, and institutions and organizations that offer support.
– The creators are a team of 14 institutions and organizations with expertise in health and/or migration.
Tapachula, September 20, 2023. Organizations that defend the rights of women and migrants presented today, September 20, the Chatbot on sexual violence and safe abortion for migrants at the Antigua Estación Ferroviaria, in Tapachula, Chiapas.
It is a technological innovation that offers automated conversations to increase access to safe abortion along the main migration routes in Mexico and is available at https://saludreproductivaparamigrantes.ipasmexico.org/
“We hope that this technological innovation will help women and people with gestational capacity to make their transit through Mexico more informed, less risky, more protected and have access to adequate health services,” said Maria Antonieta Alcalde, director of Ipas Latin America and the Caribbean, one of the organizations that co-designed this new tool.
The creators of the chatbot are a team of 14 institutions and organizations with expertise in health and/or migration with local, state, national and international scope, who worked collaboratively and multidisciplinary in the design of this space of accompaniment for women and people with gestational capacity.
At the launch event, members of the co-designer organizations gave a panel discussion on migrant women and their reproductive health in Mexico. They also presented a panel with statistical data on the use of technologies in Mexico and in Chiapas by the population in transit.
In the discussion, participants talked about how women, girls and other people with childbearing capacity who come from different countries and continents and cross Mexico trying to enter the United States in search of a better life, are highly vulnerable and are often victims of sexual violence, gender-based violence and institutional violence.
According to data from a Population Council study conducted in Ciudad Juárez, the 60 percent of migrant women reported having suffered physical violence and threats or intimidation. In addition, 14.2 percent of migrant women had been victims of rape during their migratory journey. according to research coordinated by Dr. René Leyva Flores.
On many occasions, these women, girls and other migrants enter Mexican territory without knowing what rights they have while they are in the country, what kind of support and public services they could access and what kind of instances they could approach.
In Mexico, migrants have the right to access public health services regardless of their immigration status and throughout the country abortion is legal when the pregnancy is the result of rape, but unfortunately, migrant women do not always have this information about their sexual and reproductive rights.
According to the Population Council study conducted in Ciudad Juarez, almost 70% of women did not know or did not know that they could access health services even without documents and almost 80% did not know that they could request an abortion in a public hospital without having to report the rape.
Faced with this need, government institutions that serve the migrant population offer limited services in terms of time, space and coverage. Migrants view these institutions with fear, as they are part of the government system that could deport, criminalize or incarcerate them.
Populations at high levels of vulnerability tend to prefer virtual care, especially when it comes to stigmatized or criminalized issues, such as abortion. As part of a study conducted by Ipas Latin America and the Caribbean, women from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua in Tapachula and Tuxtla Gutierrez said that the Internet is already a source of information that helps them identify and approach places where they can receive help.
The Chatbot on sexual violence and safe abortion for migrants was created for women and people with gestational capacity who find themselves in these contexts of vulnerability. Its contents are the rights of migrants in Mexico, sexual violence, safe abortion and institutions and organizations that offer support.
The chatbot will link the person to other existing applications such as those that indicate routes, access roads, transportation options, communication channels, transportation costs, etc. Example: Google Maps and/or Google My Maps. It will not require prior installation, it will be available without time restrictions for mobile or desktop devices (which are usually available among the target population or are provided by civil society organizations).
The platform can be used free of charge, anonymously, confidentially and without leaving a trace on the device from which the information is accessed, thus avoiding criminalization. In addition, it will always have a simple evaluation system that will be activated at the end of each conversation and will allow users to assign a score: satisfactory, regular or bad, and leave comments.
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