Sexual violence results in severe physical, psychological and social harm and when children face such abuse and exploitation the chances of it leaving a life long emotional and psychological scar is inevitable. Due to their natural susceptibility children are more vulnerable to sexual violence which by its nature occurs everywhere, in every country and across all segments of society. This is why international instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child recognize that in addition to the protection of the rights of all humans, childhood requires special protection due to the vulnerability and dependence of the child.
Ethiopia is not immune from this universal problem that surrounds children. Despite the presumed conservative culture in the country, there are several incidents that demonstrate the prevalence of sexual abuse against children in Ethiopia. One such example is the report in June that claimed that there had been over one hundred incidents of rape in Addis Ababa due to the closure of schools as a result of the pandemic. The report put the issue into perspective, making it a recognized public problem that needs curing. Kelela - a digital platform designed to address the above issue - is one of those organizations.
Digital technologies are now essential parts of our day to day life. Many platforms have been created in order to address this global issue. According to Selam Mussie, Founder and Project Manager of Kelela platform, “There are multiple local and international organisations working on these problems but it is never enough because the problem is really part of us - socially, culturally, religiously... it is really intertwined with our everyday life and encounter so we have a lot of work to do...and Kelela can be one of the many drops in that ocean.”
Kelela is a digital platform that was started to break the cycle of communication barriers that exist between children and the adults they interact with including parents, caretakers, and teachers. It was started three years ago around the time the global social media campaign under the hashtag #metoo was trending. Selam Muisse - a media and communications professional - is specialising in media for social change with an expertise in gender and media. Selam has always had a lifelong passion and commitment to working in the media. She shared her understanding with Addis Zeybe saying that “researching, investigating, understanding and practising communication for positive social change” inspires her work.
In November 2017, Selam shared two stories on her personal Facebook page. The stories were of her two friends, she mentions “the story was highlighting sexual abuse the two friends faced when they were children and how it has affected their lives particularly as adults. This story was particularly very important to me because we, as a society, barely talk about the topic and when it comes to children, we think they forget.” These posts resulted in a startling domino effect as many individuals started massaging stories of their own. “Following those stories I received many messages from women via my inbox - they were telling me their stories and some just saying they felt heard and understood for the first time. The similarities between the stories is just baffling because most of them said that is exactly how they felt when it happened and how it has affected them as adults.” says Selam looking back at that time.
Although Child sexual abuse is one of the dangerous forms of violence against children due to its particular characteristics, because of the spread of false beliefs and the social taboo around it, it is frequently misunderstood and hence underreported, contributing to the lack of public awareness and the perpetuation of the stigma. Abuse at an early age has both short term and long term effects on the mental and physical wellbeing of the person and the fact that it’s not openly talked about makes the effects even worse. “This story was particularly very important to me because we, as a society, barely talk about the topic and when it comes to children, we think they forget. And that not talking creates this false sense of 'randomness' which we think these things are just random incidents that happens only to few people... while the truth is it is actually one of the most common forms of abuse that every other woman has faced sexual abuse as a child in one form or another.” Says Selam in describing how important it is to be vocal about the situation as a community.
Furthermore, Selam emphasise on the importance of understanding what amounts to Sexual violence, she mentioned “We also tend to misunderstand what sexual abuse itself means and we box our definition into rape and even our idea of rape is very one sided” discussing the tendency to consider rape as exclusively penetrative rape where the victim visibly rejects the act or fights for her/his life. Selam holds that this is not the case and these and other misconceptions about sexual crimes against children, create the delusion that the phenomenon is not common. “So I shared these stories in the hopes of making my circle understand how deeply rooted the issue is and if all women were to tell their stories, the world would crash.” said Selam.
The platform Kelela started as a guidebook project for parents with the working title of “The Parents Guidebook Project”. Selam further explains stating “After the inception of the idea in 2017, it took me a year to just brew it in my head and find the best way to take it forward. I was studying abroad at the time as well so I took my sweet time to write the concept note and recruit a team that shares the same vision. So in that one year's time, I kept thinking of making it a platform where there will be multiple resources and tools working to solve issues of GBV and women's rights. The Guidebook plan was the foundation - the idea was to create a tool that parents/caretakers/teachers could use to teach them how to protect their children from sexual abuse and how to productively intervene if it ever happens.”
Kelela operates with the goal of creating contents, resources, and tools to challenge problems of GBV and gender inequality in different forms. The main target of the platform is the grass-root community. Offering solutions to these particular problems and engaging the community in doing so is the aim. In describing what drove her to start the platform, Selam mentions it to be “the gap we have in creating content and easily digestible materials to the grass root community... more practical materials and tools that engage the everyday people than a top-down approach.”
The Kelela platform is run by a team and many professionals, most of whom are volunteers. As mentioned above the platform aims at involving the community in dealing with the sexual violence. Speaking about the Kelela team’s composition Selam says “ I wanted it to be owned by the women who inspired it, the women who never told their stories, the people who care and genuinely fight against the problem.” said Selam noting the importance of personal experience due to the specific nature of child sexual abuse.
According to Selam, In the process of developing the above guideline, the writing team was led by Dr. Azeb Asaminew who is a psychiatrist by profession. Selam says the content was written by her in consultation with several professionals including psychologists Henok Hailu and Workeneh Kebede, legal professional Aklile Solomon and psychiatrist Dr. Fikirte Girma. Recalling the translation process Selam said “We have over 15 volunteer translators. We were forced to split the work - which was bulky - amongst many people in the interest of time. So, with each language the translation is done by at least three volunteers and edited by one editor.” said Selam telling Addis Zeybe about the journey of creating Kelela.
Selam also told Addis Zeybe that the guidebook’s layout and design as well as the website was done by Resolution Studio, a creative agency co-owned by Mesfin Teshome, a good friend of Selam. Kelela makes use of frequently visited social media outlets like instagram, twitter and telegram. The pre-launch campaign of the platform started on Aug 10, 2020, before Kelela was launched on Aug 20, 2020.
Regarding the feedback from the public, Selam said “So far we have been getting remarkable feedback. We have been getting messages of appreciation and positive feedback from many.” The content shared on the platforms of the initiative benefit from the reactions they receive from the public which is essential in spreading the cause and creating awareness.
Furthermore the founder and editorial manager of the platform describes that a quick survey was done on Kelela's telegram channel to which around 150 people responded. “We asked how useful they found the Guidebook. 74% said they found it to be very useful and 15% said useful. Only 6% was undecided at the time.“ said Selam also telling Addis Zeybe that those a very small percentage did not find the guidebook useful at all.
Kelela is available in six languages. These languages are Afar, Affan Oromoo, Al Somali, Amharic, Tigrinya as well as English. With the vision of becoming a content hub where resources and tools that aim to solve GBV and gender inequality are centralized and accessible, Selam said the platform is intended to become an open source platform where young Africans can co-create such content. The next step for Kelela for Children is Africa. According to Selam, with networks available and contacted in Angola, Kenya, Sudan and South Africa, the next step is contextualizing and translating the guidebook to different local languages in Africa.
