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United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development

App BONI (panic button) to reduce gender violence against women and girls

(
United Nations / Multilateral body
)
#SDGAction43369
    Description
    Description
    As part of the Project “Supporting Mexico’s Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through Open Government and Citizen Participation”, under the coordination of UNDP Mexico, in collaboration with the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection (INAI), GESOC A.C., ProSociedad and Gobierno Fácil (referred to as the Project’s Working Group), thanks to the cooperation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the execution of this multi-stakeholder initiative sought to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda through the praxis of the guiding principles of open government. Via a bottom-up approach, this project articulated active citizen participation, transparency, accountability and co-creation strategies between citizens and public institutions, as vehicles to advance the three dimensions of sustainable development, contextualizing sound and innovative solutions to address the prioritized challenges of the targeted territory.

    One of the main components of the project was the Fellowship “Capacity Building Programme in Open Government and Sustainable Development for Local Agents of Change”. UNDP Mexico in collaboration with the Working Group provided technical support, incubation and seed capital to six acceleration projects designed and implemented by fellows graduated from both generations (2017-2018) of this Fellowship Programme (for more information please visit www.apertus.org.mx).

    These acceleration projects, built in the framework of open government and sustainable development, succeeded in building strategic bridges of collaboration between citizens, subnational governments, civil society, private sector, academia and other key actors. Hence, empowering active citizens by reaffirming the potential of a collective civic consciousness to promote and enable effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

    In this context, six projects, designed and implemented by the fellows in coordination with the Project’s Working Group, were selected in the Mexican states of Tlaxcala, Quintana Roo, Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Campeche, linked by a common purpose: to act as social laboratories to co-create scalable and replicable routes of action seeking to strengthen open government practices as a pivot to accelerate the localization and progress of SDGs.

    The present Voluntary Acceleration Action elaborates on the project implemented in Tlaxcala, Mexico.

    According to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP, 2019), between 2014 and 2018 violence against women underwent a growth of 300%, from 91 to 363 denunciations. It is in this context of violence and insecurity in which Mexican girls and women are immersed that the project aimed to (1) make visible this phenomenon and to (2) contribute to reduce all types of gender violence against women and girls in the State of Tlaxcala.

    The team of fellows from Tlaxcala, designed the project called Panic Button BONI, which is a civic digital app with the objective of highlighting and addressing violence against women. After an alert is sent to authorities and personal contacts, the Governmental Command Centre C4, dispatches specialized first respondents to the location of the victim. Moreover, the app enables to map areas of danger, produce updated statistics, and to follow-up on alerts offering personalized attention by Tlaxcala’s Institute for Women.
    Expected Impact

    In Mexico, girls and women of all ages are living in a constant situation of fear, insecurity and sexual harassment at different levels. To be a woman is to be afraid of walking alone down any street at any time of the day, being conscious that danger is everywhere and that there are not many ways to escape from it. The app BONI intends to offer an easy-to-access mechanism to alert authorities and receive help in case of a violent situation that puts in danger the integrity of a women or girl.

    The main impact sought by the app is to be considered a practical tool to alert, assist, prevent and report all types of gender-based violence against women and girls.

    The project was developed in an open government setting being designed by four fellows of the Programme in Open Government and Sustainable Development, who co-created, along with local authorities, a solution to priority public problems of their subnational territory. Moreover, the app is built in an open code, thus, enabling other subnational territories to adopt it.

    In the framework of open government praxis, this app articulates the transparency principle by means of making public the operative indicators, so that it can highlight and make public danger areas and statistics by which girls and women live. Statistics from these indicators will also contribute with factual evidence to redirect and redesign the public policy in the subject matter of gender-based violence, enabling the progress and localization of SDG 5 in synergy with SDG 16.

    The project intends to contribute to advance SGD 5 that pursues Gender Equality in synergy with SDG 16, acknowledging the importance of strong and effective institutions that guarantee the rule of law and safeguard the human rights of all citizens.

    The app BONI aims to contribute to the decrease of all gender-based violence at all levels, in public and private spaces, and to reduce sexual exploitation and human trafficking. It pursues also to progress de localization of SDG Target 5b since it involves the use of technological devices that enables the empowerment of women.

    Furthermore, it is expected that the implementation of BONI will contribute with evidence-based facts to the redesign public policies and programmes to increase their effectiveness in empowering women and girls and ensuring they can have a life free of violence.

    BONI is an app that can be easily downloaded and used so that it can help girls and women to alert authorities whenever they feel or perceive themselves to be in a dangerous situation. The app BONI can be downloaded in smartphones with Android and iOS systems and can be used within the limits of the State of Tlaxcala. According to official statistics, in Tlaxcala there are 355,101 girls and women that have access to mobile telephones in cities, and 73,568 in rural spaces (Federal Institute of Telecommunications, 2019). Hence, the number of women that can be benefited from this tool to ensure their safety is about 428,669.

    Partners
    United Nations Development Programme, UNDP. (United Nations / Multilateral body)
    United Statutes Agency for International Development, USAID. (Government)
    National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection, INAI. (Government)
    Gestión Social y Cooperación, GESOC A.C. (Civil society organization)
    Gobierno Fácil (Civil society organization)
    ProSociedad A.C. (Civil society organization)
    Sistema Estatal para Prevenir, Atender, Sancionar y Erradicar la Violencia contra las Mujeres, SEPASEV (State System to Prevent, Attend, Sanction and Erradicate Violence against Women) (Government).
    Instituto Estatal de la Mujer en el Estado de Tlaxcala (State Institute of Women in Tlaxcala State) (Government)

    Goal 5

    Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

    Goal 5

    5.1

    End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere

    5.1.1

    Whether or not legal frameworks are in place to promote, enforce and monitor equality and non‑discrimination on the basis of sex

    5.2

    Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation
    5.2.1

    Proportion of ever-partnered women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to physical, sexual or psychological violence by a current or former intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by form of violence and by age

    5.2.2

    Proportion of women and girls aged 15 years and older subjected to sexual violence by persons other than an intimate partner in the previous 12 months, by age and place of occurrence

    5.3

    Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation
    5.3.1

    Proportion of women aged 20-24 years who were married or in a union before age 15 and before age 18

    5.3.2

    Proportion of girls and women aged 15-49 years who have undergone female genital mutilation/cutting, by age

    5.4

    Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate

    5.4.1

    Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age and location

    5.5

    Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life

    5.5.1

    Proportion of seats held by women in (a) national parliaments and (b) local governments

    5.5.2

    Proportion of women in managerial positions

    5.6

    Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences

    5.6.1

    Proportion of women aged 15-49 years who make their own informed decisions regarding sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care

    5.6.2

    Number of countries with laws and regulations that guarantee full and equal access to women and men aged 15 years and older to sexual and reproductive health care, information and education

    5.a

    Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws

    5.a.1

    (a) Proportion of total agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land, by sex; and (b) share of women among owners or rights-bearers of agricultural land, by type of tenure

    5.a.2

    Proportion of countries where the legal framework (including customary law) guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control

    5.b

    Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women
    5.b.1

    Proportion of individuals who own a mobile telephone, by sex

    5.c

    Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels

    5.c.1

    Proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment

    Goal 16

    Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

    Goal 16

    16.1

    Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere

    16.1.1
    Number of victims of intentional homicide per 100,000 population, by sex and age
    16.1.2
    Conflict-related deaths per 100,000 population, by sex, age and cause
    16.1.3

    Proportion of population subjected to (a) physical violence, (b) psychological violence and/or (c) sexual violence in the previous 12 months

    16.1.4

    Proportion of population that feel safe walking alone around the area they live after dark

    16.2

    End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children

    16.2.1

    Proportion of children aged 1–17 years who experienced any physical punishment and/or psychological aggression by caregivers in the past month

    16.2.2
    Number of victims of human trafficking per 100,000 population, by sex, age and form of exploitation
    16.2.3

    Proportion of young women and men aged 18–29 years who experienced sexual violence by age 18

    16.3

    Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all

    16.3.1

    Proportion of victims of (a) physical, (b) psychological and/or (c) sexual violence in the previous 12 months who reported their victimization to competent authorities or other officially recognized conflict resolution mechanisms

    16.3.2
    Unsentenced detainees as a proportion of overall prison population
    16.3.3

    Proportion of the population who have experienced a dispute in the past two years and who accessed a formal or informal dispute resolution mechanism, by type of mechanism

    16.4

    By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime

    16.4.1
    Total value of inward and outward illicit financial flows (in current United States dollars)
    16.4.2
    Proportion of seized, found or surrendered arms whose illicit origin or context has been traced or established by a competent authority in line with international instruments

    16.5

    Substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms

    16.5.1
    Proportion of persons who had at least one contact with a public official and who paid a bribe to a public official, or were asked for a bribe by those public officials, during the previous 12 months
    16.5.2
    Proportion of businesses that had at least one contact with a public official and that paid a bribe to a public official, or were asked for a bribe by those public officials during the previous 12 months

    16.6

    Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels

    16.6.1
    Primary government expenditures as a proportion of original approved budget, by sector (or by budget codes or similar)
    16.6.2

    Proportion of population satisfied with their last experience of public services

    16.7

    Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels

    16.7.1

    Proportions of positions in national and local institutions, including (a) the legislatures; (b) the public service; and (c) the judiciary, compared to national distributions, by sex, age, persons with disabilities and population groups

    16.7.2
    Proportion of population who believe decision-making is inclusive and responsive, by sex, age, disability and population group

    16.8

    Broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance

    16.8.1

    Proportion of members and voting rights of developing countries in international organizations

    16.9

    By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration

    16.9.1
    Proportion of children under 5 years of age whose births have been registered with a civil authority, by age

    16.10

    Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements

    16.10.1
    Number of verified cases of killing, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture of journalists, associated media personnel, trade unionists and human rights advocates in the previous 12 months
    16.10.2
    Number of countries that adopt and implement constitutional, statutory and/or policy guarantees for public access to information

    16.a

    Strengthen relevant national institutions, including through international cooperation, for building capacity at all levels, in particular in developing countries, to prevent violence and combat terrorism and crime

    16.a.1
    Existence of independent national human rights institutions in compliance with the Paris Principles

    16.b

    Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development

    16.b.1
    Proportion of population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed in the previous 12 months on the basis of a ground of discrimination prohibited under international human rights law
    Name Description
    The technical development of the digital app BONI.
    Statistics generated by the app BONI allowing to design risk mappings.
    The operation of the app from 10/2019 onward (Indefinitely. Although date until 12/2021 which is the end period of the actual subnational administration in Tlaxcala, with the view to re-adopt the app in the next administration period).
    Replication of the app BONI at least by one other subnational government in Mexico by 2021.
    Financing (in USD)
    $14000 usd
    Staff / Technical expertise
    Technical Cooperation by UNDP Mexico
    No progress reports have been submitted. Please sign in and click here to submit one.
    False
    Action Network
    SDG Acceleration Actions
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    Timeline
    01 November 2018 (start date)
    01 December 2021 (date of completion)
    Entity
    United Nations Development Programme, Mexico Country Office.
    SDGs
    Region
    1. Latin America and the Caribbean
    Geographical coverage
    UNDP Mexico Country Office
    Other beneficiaries
    The main beneficiaries are women and girls from the State of Tlaxcala, Mexico, that are aged between 15 and 29 years old. However, there is no limit in the age range and every woman who owns or has access to a smartphone can make use of the application intended to alert authorities and ask for help in case of a gender-based violent act.
    Countries
    Mexico
    Mexico
    Contact Information

    Adán Corral Cossío, Specialist in Open Government and Sustainable Development