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

Abstract

The challenge of designing against child sexual abuse becomes more complicated in conservative societies where talking about sex is tabooed. Our mix-method study, comprised of an online survey, five FGDs, and 20 semi-structured interviews in Bangladesh, investigates the common nature, location, and time of the abuse, post-incident support, and possible combating strategies. Besides revealing important facts, our findings highlight the need of decentering the design from the victims (children and/or guardians) to the community. Hence, building on the theory of transformative justice, we prototyped and evaluated 'ShishuShurokkha' - an online tool that involves the whole community by allowing anonymous bystander reporting, visualizing case-maps, connecting with legal, medical, and social support, and raising awareness. The evaluation of ShishuShurokkha shows the promise for such a communal approach toward combating child sexual abuse, and highlights the needs for sincere involvement of the government, NGOs, the legal, educational, and religious services in this.