The women's innovation center Wetech (Women in Entrepreneurship and Technology) launched last Friday in Douala its digital solution against gender-based violence. Elodie Nonga-Kenla, Founder and CEO of Wetech, explained that the AlerGBV platform is designed “to provide optimal and adequate assistance to survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), and to be a reference for actors, professionals, associations and organizations that help survivors.”

AlerGBV will allow survivors and those exposed to GBV to speak out anonymously and safely and receive the help they need. It also provides resources and information to raise awareness about such violence. "In its pilot phase, the platform has recorded more than 3,000 visits and the chatbot has received about 30 testimonies from survivors with more than a dozen people to whom it was able to offer direct support," says Wetech, which won the first international "Joint Innovation Challenge 2022" competition organized by the United Nations Population Fund (Unfpa). This completion aims to provide funding to social enterprises with innovative solutions that advance the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. It is partially funded by UNFPA's Equalizer Accelerator Fund, which provides non-equity investments in social enterprises led or co-led by women. The AlertGBV platform will also be deployed in Chad and South Africa, we learned.

According to UN data, more than 70% of women worldwide have experienced violence throughout their life. In Cameroon, the Women Association Against Gender-Based Violence (ALVF) estimates that 55% of women above 15 have already been victims of violence at least once. This represents nearly 4,900,000 women (2018).

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