Violence Victim Rescuer Anna Juusela is Harnessing AI to Help Victims of Domestic Violence

Did you know that Finland is the second most dangerous country in Europe for women?

Girls disappear from school benches when families sell them abroad for forced marriages, also in Finland. How did a documentary about an Afghan girl change the direction of Anna Juusela's life and how did she become the CEO of We Encourage, which runs the Aino AI chatbot, helping victims of domestic violence?

Our guest Anna Juusela is an entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience in the retail sector as a consultant. Her vision and determination to prevent forced marriages and empower women led her to establish the startup We Encourage, an impact company utilizing tech for women empowerment by developing a customizable AI chatbot AINO for victims of domestic abuse to provide psycho-social help, long-term support, and guidance 24/7.

AINO has already helped more than 1500 victims in Finland and in Tanzania. AINO chatbot won the “Digital service of the year” prize in 2021. Anna Pyykkö interviews Anna Juusela in this episode of Crush Talk Show. 

Interview with Anna Juusela

We Encourage, a company founded by Anna Juusela, has developed a chatbot Aino that uses artificial intelligence. 

Aino's mission is to help victims of domestic violence. The Aino chatbot started from Anna's personal awakening to the plight of girls. In three years, Aino has developed from an idea to concrete help tool for victims of domestic violence. 

Tell us, where did the idea to create a chatbot came from and what was the thing that actually got you interested in this issue?

Anna: What  sparked my interest in this issue was actually a TV documentary. I saw a documentary about an Afghan girl, and in the middle of this documentary this girl, Sonita, was supposed to be sold into marriage by her family, and the producer of the documentary ended up buying her free for two thousand dollars. 

I had just recently had my own daughter, and this thought that somewhere in the world my daughter would be merchandise, was so shocking to me.

This happened in 2016 and it somehow stayed in my heart, and that something should be done about it. But my own background is in marketing trends, and these kind of things were somehow so distant to my day-to-day, that I didn't have guts to do anything about it at the time.

But that thought didn't leave me alone, and little by little I started having ideas: what if we could help these girls? 

If we paid those families to keep the girls in school, we could make  a financial incentive.  And on the other hand, I was also interested in technology, blockchain and artificial intelligence, and I started getting to know more and more about them and different ideas started to arise.

After that, I started contacting organizations and asking about their needs, and that's where violence against women actually started to emerge as a big issue. Forced marriages and child marriages are part of this domestic violence problem. 

Quite a shocking story. Somehow I get chills, as a mother of a girl myself. Of course things happen all the time, but it's terrifying how girls are like merchandise.

Anna Juusela: Yes, and I was so naive that I imagine that the problem is somewhere else, that here in Finland we are like in a safe nest, and equal.

The more I started researching this, the more I realized that, wait a minute, it happens here too. 

Even in Finland, girls go missing from school, and then I started to scratch the surface deeper on the domestic violence and other statistics. From there, the whole truth started to emerge, that maybe we don't have things as good here as we want to believe.

Finland is often thought of as a model country of equality and safety, but according to statistics, we are the second most dangerous country for women in Europe. 

In Finland, 47% of women have experienced sexual or physical violence after the age of fifteen. 

These facts are probably not new to you, but what do you think about them?

Anna Juusela:  Well, of course it shocks me, but then when I think about my own youth, it's not once or twice when even middle-aged men have come to propose going to hotel rooms during my teenage years. 

That kind of violence, which includes this sexual harassment, conditioning and other things, it's somehow so normal in our everyday lives. 

The worst thing about this is that it's somehow swept under the rug, and if it's discussed, there's always a group of people saying that “not all men”. 

Not all, it's true, not all. But still, the people who do it, they very rarely get caught. And the person who experiences violence has a very low chance of getting help or support or rarely even dares to tell anyone about it.

Domestic violence is of course not something experienced by women alone, and certainly the Aino chatbot has offered help to men as well. 

How did you come to the conclusion that a chatbot would specifically be an effective help, weren't there already other aids for victims of domestic violence?

Anna Juusela: This bot is gender neutral and helps everyone regardless of their gender. 

This started from the fact that when I talked with these organizations about their needs, and they raised as one of the problems that there are so many women who experience violence, but they just don’t have enough resources to help. 

The burden of providing help is on the shoulders of the organizations and even if they had chat services, they were only open for a few hours a week.

There are telephone services as well, but people have a high threshold to call them. 

Then I started looking for people who have experienced violence. 

I contacted them and shared with them that I had heard from organizations that a Chatbot could help, but they currently do not have the ability or resources to implement such a thing.

I then asked the domestic violence survivors,  what they would have needed. What was their path to this?

Almost all of them found it terribly difficult to leave the relationship.

First, to seek help because they had so much shame. 

They were ashamed of themselves, they were ashamed of the situation and often it is a cycle of violence where it’s not that violence is there all the time, but there are good times as well. 

Then there is often that love as well. So there is a slightly skewed dynamic and fear in the relationship. 

An abused person tries to leave the relationship on average 7 times before succeeding, and each time is more dangerous. Homicides usually occur when women are trying to break away from the relationship.

Chatbot can be the first acute help, and it helps for a while, but we also aim to help by directing to long-term therapy. 

At first, many just want to understand their own situation, and they felt that this kind of anonymous chat help is good for that.

There you will find information, you will get support and understanding that maybe everything is not OK.

Maybe it's not normal for me to be beaten, for example, or that the biggest problem is the mental violence. In mental violence you are controlled and you may feel something isn’t right, but maybe I am just crazy. 

You will get support, and then you will be directed to where you can get that help. 

In the future, we aim to have other support resources in our service as well. 

So people can find the right kind of therapists and get help and support even after leaving the relationship, or when the violence ends.

I have to go back to what you said, that on average it takes seven times to leave a relationship, and everytime it is more difficult and may then culminate even in murder.

I came across a figure that 38% of murders of women are committed by spouses worldwide. How do you see what we should do to improve women's safety?

Anna Juusela: I think the biggest and most important thing is to end the silence around this issue. 

At the moment, this problem is mostly worked on in organizations and among those doing the support work, and others continue to live contentedly in the "not in my backyard" style. 

Yet, it can be your own sister or mother or aunt or someone close to you who experiences violence.

 A good friend who just doesn't dare to tell about it, or isn't able to bring it up. 

The silence around the issue needs to be ended,  and we should start going from focusing in problems to focusing on solutions. 

We have different operating models and there is all kinds of help, but their availability is surprisingly low.

Many that have been talked with, who have survived, they found it difficult. 

According to statistics, less than 1% of victims of domestic violence are identified in healthcare, even though they use more healthcare services, they are still poorly identified. 

In other words, the professionals, who may encounter these victims, have not been instructed to ask what the situation is at home. We need openness around the issue that it's OK to talk about it, like “there's no need to be ashamed”, “we support you”.

It seems pretty wild in light of all these numbers, that only 1% are recognized. Is there be a lot of work to be done on the health care side as well, how do we guide this health care staff to identify these victims and should there be somehow be, for example, standard questions to identify them? It feels really absurb.

Anna Juusela: Yes, and we are also trying to bring that solution.

If it seems awkward to ask about it, or it can be such a difficult situation for the abused that they don't want to talk about it, they can then be referred to our Aino Aid, for example, and from there they can search for information. 

There you can take tests to see what kind of your relationship is, and then find information and resources.  In the future,  you will be able to chat with bot and ask if this situation is OK and get the right solutions for it.

There is already quite a lot of research data. We know the problem and its extent, but there have been surprisingly few solutions. The Istanbul agreement was written a long time ago and this has been talked about for decades. Even the European Commission constantly reminds Finland that more should be done for women's safety.

I personally know as a impact company owner, that this is not an easy road. The solution came as a byproduct for us too, when we realized that the need is so great. 

It isn’t easy to build a sustainable business model for this. I understand that solutions are never easy. But it's always worth trying.

Indeed. And that reminded me that Aino Chatbot works not only here in Finland but also in Tanzania, tell me a little about that?

Anna Juusela: Yeah, this was an interesting power of social media. 

I spoke on LinkedIn with a person who works at Fingo Powerbank, and they got excited about our business idea and what we are doing. They introduced us to Holmström, an employee of the Finnish Missionary there in Tanzania, and we applied for funding to see if this could work there. 

We researched the market and then received further funding from the Swiss Embassy in Tanzania to build a 10-month joint project there.

A bit of a surprising opportunity, which we decided to take even though almost everyone told us not to go there, that it's a difficult place. I personally saw that we were still able to move forward, to get to know the different needs and culture. We also noticed a lot of similarities, which means that the experiences and feelings are quite universal. Violence will not change for any reason.

 One last question for you: what is one such thing or myth that you would like to crush?

Anna Juusela: One thing or myth that I would like to crush.. oh, there are quite a few, but I would like to break one so that people would dare to be braver. 

Meaning, if you have that small dream or goal there and you know that you could do something, but that's it too scary -  I wish people would dare to do more of what is in their hearts. 

The kind dreams that light your fire and scares deep inside, because I firmly believe that everyone is the creator of his own happiness. You build the kind of life you want to live. 

Of course there are different circumstances and there are situations where life throws you here and there, but it's your attitude that decides how you go on from it.

And I want to crush the myth that you are at the mercy of someone else, or that things just happen to you and you couldn't influence them yourself. I would like to crush that somehow. 

In Finland, we fuss too much with many things. I’ve encountered quite a lot that people are resistant to change and if you bring some new innovation, it is not received with great enthusiasm. Many things have to be successful outside Finland, before getting people excited here. 

On the other hand, small successes, like how we received the Digital Service of the Year award last year, reinforce the idea that it is worth moving forward. 

And then you should remember why you are working so hard for something. Not just for yourself, but for everyone. You should have the courage to ignite your own fire and do what you want. 

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Crush Movement was founded by Anna Pyykkö and Katja Presnal. Crush Movement brings thought-leaders together to redefine what success means today. Together we crush the patriarchic norms, and build a better future by empowering feminine energy and soft values. Together, we will change the world through female entrepreneurship.

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