In partnership with non-profit Girl Effect, WhatsApp announced on Wednesday that they will be launching Artificial Intelligence (AI) based chatbot ‘Bol Behen’ (colloquial Hindi for ‘Speak, Sister’) in India to help adolescent girls and young girls women with queries around general health and sexual wellbeing.

The app is designed to provide content on topics related to women’s reproductive health, sexuality, and relationships in a chat format on the instant messaging app. The users can talk in “Hinglish,” a mix of English and Hindi languages, with the chatbot. Users can also ask questions on different topics.

To access the Bol Behen chatbot, users will have to send ‘Hi’ to the number +91-7304496601 on WhatsApp or by visiting its profile on the Web. WhatsApp said the new chatbot is targeted at adolescent girls and young women in the Hindi belt of India who typically use low-end smartphones with limited Internet bandwidth.

The chatbot is projected to reach millions of girls across India to answer their health curiosities and concerns and connect them to vetted services in the future.

Previously, Girl Effect first launched the Bol Behen chatbot in India on Facebook Messenger in 2020. It reached around 100,000 lakh conversations, with over 1.6 million messages received. The chatbot was inspired by a similar chatbot launched in South Africa named Big Sis to offer non-judgemental advice on topics related to women’s sexual health and relationships.

Kanishk Kabiraj, Girl Effect Country Lead for India said, “WhatsApp’s technology offers us the opportunity to forge closer links between girls and the health services they need, providing content that solves her concerns and encourages her to access healthcare, through connection with curated and vetted providers.”

He also added, “This will help us to deliver more seamless, personalized healthcare journeys in the future — for example, leading to girls booking appointments, getting reminders, and sharing feedback all within Bol Behen.”

Girl Effect works to reach girls and young women across Africa and Asia with chatbots, chat shows, and TV dramas to give them knowledge about their bodies and health. This new chatbot targeting young adolescent girls in India will undoubtedly lead to faster transmission of authentic information regarding women’s health.

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The fifth Monthly Compliance Report for India by WhatsApp indicates that 2,069,000 accounts were banned in the country in October 2021. The process which relies on WhatsApp’s abuse detection technology has had some huge numbers in previous months, with the October figure lower than the 2.2 million accounts blacklisted by the social media platform in September 2021.

WhatsApp also announced that it received 500 grievance reports from users, which comprised 248 ban appeals, 146 account support requests, and 53 product support, among others. There were some actions taken under the various grievance reports and the new regime is in line with the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Code regulations, 2021.

The user-safety report mechanism kicked off in July 2021 and enables WhatsApp to monitor and take preventive actions to combat abuse of its safety rules on the platform. An Indian account is identified with its prefix +91 in the phone number, and the banning is aimed at preventing abuse among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. WhatsApp uses its Artificial Intelligence and other technologies to ensure that users are kept safe on the platform.

The huge number of accounts that have been progressively banned by WhatsApp may be indicative of the depth of the problem of abuse within social media platforms. WhatsApp hopes to continue to enhance its processes to discover and prevent abuse within the platform. It has continued to invest heavily in technology as the driving force for ensuring compliance with its rules.

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