'Felisa Yanapiri', the 'app' administered by Aymara women to confront sexist violence

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Bolivia, like many countries before, entered a rigid quarantine on Saturday March 21, 2020 as a preventive or protective measure to avoid contagion against the covid-19 virus.

"Stay at home" was the global slogan against the pandemic.

As the borders were closed, movement was prohibited and a day a week was set aside to stock up.

The then interim president of the Andean nation, Jeanine Áñez, stressed: "I ask the population to try to leave their homes as little as possible, only go out to work and then return home to be with the family."

However, the home, considered a safe place against the virus, was not for many women.

In the 71 days that the rigid quarantine in Bolivia lasted, from March 21 to May 31, there were almost 3,000 complaints of violence, according to the publication

, published by the Gender Observatory of the Women's Coordinator.

Despite these figures, it is estimated that there was an underreporting of cases due to the impossibility of displacement and reporting.

Faced with this situation, the Organization of Aymara Women of Kollasuyo (OMAK) decided not to sit idly by and created an

called Felisa Yanapiri, a technological alternative that seeks to combat gender violence in the Andean country.

The

was launched for the Android operating system in April 2022. To reach the materialization of the final product, the OMAK community promoters, women of Aymara descent, began to give each other ways through WhatsApp, phone calls and other means to help and guide those who were going through a violent situation.

“There were no services, there was no possibility of leaving.

We were all in confinement and anyway the violence

was.

Of

That is where the idea of ​​having an application was born in which women who cannot easily access care, protection or prevention services can have information”, Bernarda Ferreira, OMAK project coordinator, tells América Futura.

Together with the promoters, who currently number 25, the character of Felisa Yanapiri was designed, which according to Ferreira has a deep significance, since Felisa comes from the word "happy woman" and yanapiri translates from Aymara as "the one who helps

"

So they created a character with which the promoters that are part of OMAK agreed, an Aymara woman with the traditional dress of the chola from La Paz.

Smiling, with her purple skirt and other colorful clothes, she sends the following message: “Are you suffering from violence and don't know what to do anymore?

follow me!

I am Felisa Yanapiri and I am here to help you”.

The

, with more than 500 downloads to date, has several features, but perhaps the most important are the orange help or panic button, which works as a kind of alert for numbers that are previously registered.

This button sends a text message requesting help from these contacts in case a woman finds herself in a violent situation.

Aymara women look at a brochure from the Yanapiri application.COURTESY

The other important button in the application, green in color, is the one that allows the person to be connected with a promoter of Felisa Yanapiri's comprehensive service, where they can receive guidance, whether legal or psychological, or even to schedule face-to-face care at OMAK's offices, located in the city of El Alto, near La Paz, in the western part of the country.

Likewise, the application has a georeferential system through which it indicates the police stations and institutions to which women can go in case of being victims of violence, but this function, as well as others within the

are in the process of being improvement, according to Ferreira.

“There is another button that provides information on the international treaties that protect women against violence, as well as information and the types of violence that the Comprehensive Law to Guarantee Women a Life free of Violence contemplates and an anonymous questionnaire

which, by answering 10 questions about this type of situation, recommends whether the person should seek help.

However, they are functions that must be improved to guarantee a better service”, the project coordinator specifies.

According to the

, in 2021, Bolivia is the country with the highest rate of gender violence, almost 60%, of women who have suffered physical or sexual abuse in Latin America and the Caribbean, above the figures for Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which are between 30% and 35%.

Francisca Poma Cadena is one of the promoters who started within the project when the pandemic began.

She, along with four other women, were trained through workshops to improve their skills and learn to use applications for their cell phone work.

His main job, for which he has already dealt with at least 60 cases, is "emotional support."

If a woman needs guidance, it doesn't matter if she is in the city, in the urban periphery or in a province, a community promoter, like Poma, comes, if the victim so requires, to help her follow the steps to file a complaint , to give her emotional support at that time or to refer her to a specialist, whether psychological or legal, at OMAK.

“This application is important because it can be decisive in a life or death situation.

Because until the police show up, if they do, you may already be dead.

They do not respond and when the police are called in the neighborhood units, they still get angry and ignore it.

I have experienced that myself.

We do this voluntarily, which is why we need more support from local and state authorities," concludes Poma.