First year students from Habib University assist Zariya India build a website for women to report abuse and seek legal aid
HABIB UNIVERSITY: Three first-year students from Habib University’s (HU) School of Science & Engineering (SSE) helped Code for India build Zairya India, an online service to assist women in reporting abuse and seeking legal recourse. This came about through their internship with Code for Pakistan over Summer Break 2015.
The project started when Dr. Waqar Saleem – Assistant Professor of Computer Science at HU – contacted Code for Pakistan for summer internship opportunities for HU students and was informed about Zariya Pakistan – a proposed service similar in scope to the one launched in India. At the beginning of the summer break, he presented the project, along with several others of his own, to the SSE Class of 2018. Three students – Anusha Fatima, Syed Muhammad Hasan Naqvi and Fatin Nawaz – accepted the internship.
During the course of the internship, the project’s scope shifted from Zariya Pakistan to Zariya India as the latter was closer to completion and the Habib team was excited about the chance to work with Code for India in the process. The students added tracking capabilities to the website through Google Analytics. The contributions of the team are officially acknowledged on Zariya India’s webpage.
Habib University is proud of our students’ contribution in helping address a serious social issue. According to the United Nations: “It is estimated that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives. However, some national studies show that up to 70 per cent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.”
