How a New Generation of Changemakers Is Using Technology in the Fight to End Violence Against Women

This piece by Hera Hussain originally appeared on The Huffington Post. You can read the piece in its entirety here.

The following is a guest post from Hera Hussain. Hera is the Founder and CEO ofCHAYN, a UK-based open source gender and tech project that builds platforms, toolkits and runs hackathons to empower women facing violence & the organisations supporting them.

Tara is a 26-year-old aspiring computer engineer based in Oman. She has always excelled at her classes, exams and internships, and appears to live a normal life. But what no one knows is that when she’s at home, Tara is battling physical abuse, neglect and sexual abuse at the hands of her family. During one particularly violent episode of abuse, she was burnt, spent a year locked up and had her phone taken away. By hiding two pairs of cellphones and using a computer at her university, she is now in the position to leave Oman and escape the control of her parents. A few months ago, she got in touch with CHAYN, the charity I run, after finding us through a simple Google search. With our help, she will soon be free of the abuse she has been trying to escape for the last 7 years.

There are many other girls and women like Tara in the world.