Development and Implementation of Violence against Women and their Children Report System Mobile Application

Mobile application is a powerful tool that reduces the communication gap between individuals or organizations, which can also integrate many features like e-reporting. This study aims to develop and implement a web and mobile application for reporting Violence Against Women and their Children (VAWC) in the Province of Laguna intended for women who experienced violence from their partners. The mobile application has an e-reporting mechanism to contact pre-selected people in times of emergency and VAWC-related information translated in a local language. Moreover, the system has five major features such as emergency module, tracking module, reporting module, awareness/information dissemination module, assessment module, job and shelter module that are connected to web application. The agile methodology was used in the software development that integrates different Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) tools and follows stages in the model like planning, requirements, analysis and design, testing, evaluation, and deployment. All the system features are working and passed the series of test casing like functionality test, performance test, system test, portability, and sharing test. The developed system achieved its primary purpose to help the community especially the women and children through a web and mobile application.


Introduction
For the past years, the cycle of violence against women and children has been an unending battle among victims, gender and development advocates, human rights group, law enforcement and government agencies. Even with the passage of RA 9262 or the Anti-Violence against Women Act of 2004 and despite concerted campaign attempts to promote public knowledge and awareness about violence against women (VAW) including its basic concepts, impact on victims, and the pressure put on the public about the consequences and legal hurdles associated with it, the rising cases of violence has not put into stop. All barangays or villages in the Philippines are even mandated to establish a VAW desk to ease access to justice and support services in incidents of violence. Even the procedure is generally facilitated through referral to the Women and Child Protection Desk (WCPD) at police stations (United Nations Women, 2020), putting an end to VAW still remains a lengthy and twisted road.
The Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) indicates that more work has to be done to reduce the number of documented and unreported VAW incidents in the country. Based from the Philippine National Police (PNP) report, the number of VAW cases around the country decreased to 18,685 in 2018, down from 25,805 cases in 2017 and 32,073 cases in 2016. That is down from 87 percent per day in 2016 and 70 percent per day in 2017, to 51 per day in 2018. In 2018, the most common type of VAW case reported to police was physical injury, followed by acts of lasciviousness and rape (Bagaoisan, 2019).
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, as reported by Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in 2018, one (1) in three (3) women worldwide had experienced physical or sexual violence, the majority of which was perpetrated by an intimate relationship. In the Philippines, one (1) out of every four (4) Filipino women between the ages of 15 and 49 experience physical, emotional, or sexual assault from their husband or partner (National Demographic Health, 2017).
Despite the fact that the PSA reported fewer occurrences of violence against women in 2020, the PNP documented 15,553 VAW crimes in 2020, down by 27.2 percent from the 21,366 cases in 2019. Physical abuse reports fell by 30.1 percent in 2020, from 16,251 in 2019 to 11,357 in 2020, while acts of lasciviousness fell by 24.8 percent, from 2,085 in 2019 to 1,568 in 2020.
Rape cases reported increased by only six cases year over year, from 2,162 in 2019 to 2,168 in 2020 (Gomeza & Robredillo, 2021). Attorney Eric Paul Peralta, Drector of UPLB-GC, stated that crises create a climate for and are linked to increasing gender-based violence, such as VAW. He believes it is high time to bring VAW to light, citing societal stigma and cultural considerations as reasons for its underreporting (UPLB, 2021).
To shed light, the drop in reported cases could be related to community restrictions, public transit suspension, victims being locked up with their attackers, a lack of communication channels, and a lack of knowledge on where/how to report (PCW, 2020). Further, non-reporting of VAW incident is primarily motivated by the victim's optimism that the case would be resolved inside the family and thus not have to be made public. The wife's concern for her children's emotional and physical well-being is also one of the main reasons why violence situations are not reported to the authorities (Ignacio, 2021).
According to Balahadia and Mortel (2020), there are several applications related to violence against women in many countries. Accordingly, these countries have embraced with enthusiasm emerging technology with common features such as information dissemination, identifying victim location based on GPS, SOS emergency features and immediate contact to selected relatives and friends. These are the common features of existing applications like VAW Free PH, Women's Hub, Ana Bella App, Circle of 6, Harras Map, Watch Over Me and Nidarr.
However, these still have weaknesses that need to improve to make it more useful for both victims and related government agencies in taking immediate actions to respond to the violence.
The study of Eisenhut et al. (2019) supported the World Health Organization (WHO) in creating mobile application about violence against women that can help to raise awareness and support removal of taboos, especially in the generation of digital, empowerment through sharing and connecting (e.g. on social media), facilitation of interactions between VAW survivors and existing support institutions and provide an opportunity for comparably easy and quick access to information (multilingual). Innovative mobile phone applications that provide a lifeline for female victims of violence and abuse have been developed. However, not all apps have a flawless feature that can satisfy all of the community's and government agencies' requirements.
Information dissemination, victim location based on GPS, SOS emergency features, and immediate contact to selected relatives and friends are common features of existing applications as VAW Free PH, Women's Hub, Ana Bella App, Circle of 6, Harras Map, Watch Over Me, and Nidarr. However, there are still problems that need to be addressed in order for victims and relevant government institutions to be more effective in responding to violence (Mortel & Balahadia, 2020). Thus, this study adopted the mentioned studies and improved the composition of the developed application. The mobile application has a different integration of technology like the Global Positioning System for tracking the location of the victim and the e-Reporting System. It also has a local language expressed information and questionnaire module.
Additionally, the mobile application JUANAHELP provided a map for the temporary shelter of the VAWC victim and a module for the list of job opportunities. In developing the mobile application, the study used programming languages and software application like PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, Bootstrap, Font Awesome, jQuery, ChartJS, Google Maps API, Hostinger, Java, SQLite, Semaphore SMS API, Adobe XD, and Adobe Photoshop. . This technology will facilitate quick and easy reporting for the victims and witnesses' quick response with just a click using their fingertip. As such, this study aims to develop JUANAHELP: E-Reporting System of VAWC Mobile Application. Specifically, it aims to construct a web and mobile application capable of reporting VAWC with emergency, awareness, assessment, job opportunities and shelter modules, and evaluate the performance of the system using the test casing particularly the functionality, sharing, installation, portability, and performance.

Literature Review
Mobile applications can easily be used, accessed, and moved from any location through handheld devices (Weichbroth, 2020). The proliferation of internet access, combined with advancements in smartphone technology, inclines the demand and fast-growing development of mobile applications for health, business, education, and reporting of different accidents and crime (Rotman et al., 2016;Plaza et al., 2013;El-Gayar et al., 2013;Wesley & Fizur, 2015;Peake, Kerr & Sullivan, 2018;Paramastri et al., 2020;Matthews, Win, Oinas-Kukkonen & Freeman, 2015;Agarwal et al., 2021;Veazie, 2018;Drigas & Angelidakis, 2017;Baharuddin et al., 2012;Raza & Rajamanickam, 2015;Fadaei & Bayazidi, 2019). In particular, accident and crime occur everywhere and an intervention of a mobile technology and reporting system can be applied in crime reporting for instance Kiruthika et al. (2021) designed an interactive mobile-ISSN 2799-1601 (Print) 2799-161X (Online) | 21 based crime reporting system with a map function to aid in the tracking of crime scene location information, Bhole et al. (2021) developed an interactive crime reporting mobile application that allows users to effortlessly and immediately report a crime or emergency, Jayasinghe & Perera (2021) suggested a reporting system can help enhance the effectiveness of police services, Perera (2016) created smartphone application incident reporting system that can assist people in reporting a road traffic collision, seeing an infringement on the road, or seeing anything illegal happen in a few simple steps, and Borandag et al. (2017) made an emergency position reporting system the aim of this application using GPS technology in mobile phones, lessen the challenges individuals face while dialing emergency numbers.
There are also several studies on using mobile application in reporting crimes. For example, Chand et al. (2015) created Women's safety app (WoSApp) that gives women a reliable option to contact the police in an emergency by shaking her phone or deliberately interacting with the application's user interface via a simple touch of a PANIC button on the screen. The user can effortlessly and discreetly start the calling feature, then the police receives an immediate communication providing the user's geographic location as well as the contact information for a pre-selected list of emergency contacts. Meanwhile, Rishta et al. (2015) proposed a location-based mobile application with privacy considerations that gives women the tools they need to fight sexual harassment in public places. The mobile app allows users to covertly record sexual harassment encounters on the street. Kharat et al. (2020) used REST API and face recognition to developed an android application that contains features such as real-time crime reporting (record crime) and the ability to view recent news or notifications from the police department. Similarly, Ignaco (2019) created a mobile app for reporting incidents that contains three categories: public disturbance, ordinance violation, and crime incidence.

Methodology
In this study, the developmental design was used as a research method. The study focuses on the development of a mobile app for VAWC. In order to validate the study components, an online interview and survey through Google forms in the PNP Women Desk Officer and Gender and Development personnel were conducted. The survey assessed the preferences of respondents in reporting VAWC cases and the problem they experienced with 22 | International Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Volume 2 Issue 3 their partners. The results of the survey and interview were the basis of the features of the VAWC mobile application reporting system with benchmarking from the existing systems.
The developed system has user interface, which is the mobile application and administrator interface in the form of website as shown in figure 1. The figure shows that users are the VAWC victims and administrator is the official of Philippine National Police -Women's Desk or the Gender and Development Official.

Conceptual Framework of JUANAHELP
The "e-reporting mobile application for violence against women and their children" and "web application" were divided into two categories with different modules within the conceptual framework. The mobile application for e-reporting has five Modules: the emergency module, awareness module, assessment module, job opportunities module, and shelter module. The system features have administrators to track incidences of VAWC. The user must register in order to log in to the application.
The "emergency module" is the reporting portion of the mobile application for the user to send help to the pre-selected individuals in their contacts saved in the system. E-reporting has ADMINISTRATO R GAD OFFICIALS, PNP -Women's desk the capabilities to include pictures, getting the locations, and sending reports. It includes the "awareness module" which contains information about their legal rights, legal assistance, and legal defense. This module's content was translated into tagalog to make it simpler for them to understand. The user can evaluate whether they are being abused by their partner using the "assessment module". To get the results, the user must choose a response to the application's provided question. The assistance services for VAWC victims are displayed in the "job opportunities" module. This element of the support program helps the victim begin to meet their financial needs again. The user of this feature may utilize the application to look for open positions. The "shelter module" is one of the mobile application's additional assistance features.
In this module, the victim can hover on a map the location of the shelter that is offered to them if they need a place to remain temporarily away from their attacker.
The "website applications" allows the victim to be monitored by the appropriate The system's "home" page displays a dashboard with information on the number of registered admin user accounts, registered resident accounts, total messages received, and the number of account logs. Additionally, it views a graph showing the number of VAWC incidents on a daily and monthly basis, the number of incidents in each municipality, and commonly asked questions. The system's "user" interface allows users to view a list of administrators, add new administrators for certain towns, and archive. The "residents" option allows users to browse the list of existing inhabitants as well as add new ones. The user's ability to respond to messages and victim alert messages is provided through the "messaging" feature. The Provincial GAD official or Provincial PNP Women Desk Officer may generate reports using the "reports" option feature. The resulting report can be printed and saved, and it can be filtered by date. The Provincial PNP Women Desk Officer or Provincial GAD official can view reported occurrences 24 | International Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Volume 2 Issue 3 using the "incident maps" option feature. It displays both the prior and the most recent reports to the locations where the incident is said to have occurred. The "add and confirm shelter" option features allow the Provincial PNP Officer or Provincial GAD official to verify the list of shelters in the region and add new shelter lists to the map. Through "job opportunities", the Provincial PNP Women Desk Officer or Provincial GAD official can modify job data, add users, and update job openings.

System Development Model
The gathered data also led to the use of an Agile Model in the process of developing the system. Figure 2 shows the applied methodology for software development.

Figure 2
Agile Methodology Phases The agile methodology was used to quickly adapt changes and to continually improve each phase of the development, which include planning, requirements, analysis and design, development and testing, evaluation, and deployment. The system was released once completed but it iterates the process if there are some changes.
The study identified different tools for the software development. The application and programming language used were PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, Bootstrap, Font Awesome, jQuery,

Mobile Application (User)
In order to log-in to the application, the user needs to sign up as shown in figure 3.

Figure 3
Registration and Log-in The developed e-reporting mobile application contains emergency module, awareness module, assessment module, job opportunities module, and shelter module as shown in the succeeding figures. In addition, the system has an admin page to monitor the VAWC incidents.

Emergency Module
This module is the reporting part of the mobile application and the user can send help to the pre-selected person in their contacts saved in the system. Some of the features of the ereporting are attaching evidences using Take a pic ( figure 4). The user can capture images of the incidents and can be sent as an attachment to the report.  Meanwhile, figure 6 is the report sending option. The user can tap the Send alert button and it will ask confirmation if they want to send it. If the user confirms the report, the message will be sent to their save contact.

Figure 6
Sending Alert Message The last part of the emergency module is the Action shown in figure 7. This receives the official's response to the user's alert message. The user can input the arrival code of the rescuers if they were rescued. This feature determines if their emergency and messages were given proper action by the officials involve in VAWC.

Figure 7
Actions 28 | International Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Volume 2 Issue 3

Awareness Module
In this module, the users can view and read the essential information connected to VAWC. The content of the awareness module is related to their rights, laws, support, and protection as shown in figure 8. The contents were transcribed in tagalog language to make them easily understand.   Figure 10 shows the support services for the victim of VAWC. Job Opportunities Module is a support service to the victim to start rebuilding their economic needs. In this feature, the user can look for job vacancies.

Shelter Module
Another support service of the mobile application is Shelter Module shown in figure 11.
In this module, the victim can view through the map the location of the shelter available for them to stay temporarily.

Figure 11
Shelter Module 30 | International Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Volume 2 Issue 3

Web Application (Super Admin and Admin)
The application also secures a way that the victim can be monitored by the right officials.
The officials (administrator) can monitor the VAWC incidents in the particular area, track the record per municipality and update the support services for the victims. There are two types of administrators, super administrator, PNP Laguna Women Desk or Gender and Development Provincial Official, and the administrator, Municipal PNP Women Desk Officer and Municipal GAD officer. These are the following features of the system. The super admin can get the consolidated report of Laguna while the admin can only view the report for their municipalities. Figure 12 shows the Log-In for administrator. The user can input the username and password to log-in.

Figure 12
Admin Log-in Figure 13 shows the Home of the system. It shows the dashboard of the number of admin user account registered, the number of residents registered accounts, the total messages received and the number of account logs. It also views the graph of daily and monthly incidents of VAWC, the number of VAWC incident per municipality and the frequently ask question.    Figure 16 shows the Messaging option. It allows the user to reply to the messages and received alert messages of the victims.

Figure 16
Messaging Figure 17 shows the generation of the incident Reports option. This feature allows the Provincial PNP Women Desk Officer or Provincial GAD official to generate reports. They can filter the report by the date and they can print and save the generated report.

Figure 17
Reports Figure 18 shows the generation of the Incident Maps option. This feature allows the Provincial PNP Women Desk Officer or Provincial GAD official to view the reported incidents through the map. It shows the previous report and actual report where the reported incident happened. This feature was connected to the Location set in the mobile application.   Through this app, the incidence of VAWC will be easily reported and monitored. It also made possible to help individuals who are being abused in real-time. Along with the other modules, the emergency module will be of significant use to the police or any authority looking into the abuse case. The application is an easy way to give victims a voice and help them feel safe in their communities. The app also provides a mechanism for the authorities to collaborate better and prevent future VAWC incidents. It will also be a great way to raise awareness among the public.
The victims can begin a new life because the application can help them find any job 34 | International Journal of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Volume 2 Issue 3 opportunities and a place to live. Furthermore, this application will educate victims and make them aware if they are being abused by someone.
The study also creates a webpage that the Laguna PNP Women Desk or GAD Provincial Officials can access with ease. It proved highly beneficial for the authorities to keep track of incidents of VAWC reports, as well as updates, add shelters and job vacancies in the area.
Having this type of application will allow victims to change their lives and no longer be afraid of abusive partners and others. The use of this project helps bring a sense of safety and security to those who need it most. The application also helps to improve the processes of the department, which will help to keep the department ahead of the curve in the fight against VAWC. This project has the potential to change the ways that the department operates, which will have a positive impact on the community. Table 1 shows the android device use to test the functionality of the mobile application JUANAHELP while Table 2 summary of functionality test for the application of JUANAHELP.

Functionality Test
The 6 different modules of the application passed all the tests proving that it was successfully developed. The test casing evaluation helps determine if the desired output have been met. Every testing was comprehensively checked and monitored by some colleagues to avoid bias. Once the system meets all the criteria such as time speed of execution, match to the number of functionalities, and response time, it is marked "PASSED." There are 92 total test results for the six modules, which were marked passed in the whole duration of the evaluation.

Sharing Test
The sharing capability of four mobile phone to Bluetooth and Share It was also tested.
The application was transferred in the apk format with the size of 6.77mb.    Table 5 shows the loading test results for four mobile devices. The fastest application in all features is mobile phone 3 and the slowest loading is mobile phone 4.  Table 6 shows that the application JUANAHELP was successfully working in the four different specifications of mobile phones. The devices differ in their version, RAM and phone brand. Performance Test Table 7 shows the JUANAHELP responsiveness. After the different tests, the application did not show any complications as it processed the commands in real-time. According to the results of the testing, the application works well on four mobile devices and passes all tests but it runs smoothly on mobile phone number 3 with an Android version of Q 10.0, 6 GB of RAM, and a snapdragon processor in terms of sharing, installing, and loading.

Portability Test
Therefore, it would be preferable to use high version of android devices for the application to install, share and load fast. Since the expected response time and the actual response time of the testing are identical, the performance test was also passed. Overall, the test results showed that the JUANAHELP: E-Reporting System mobile application was effectively completed, with all modules and features working properly. The method has shown to be extremely beneficial to the community, particularly to women and their children who have been victims of domestic violence.

Conclusion
This study is focus on the development of web and mobile application named JUANAHELP: E-Reporting System of Violence against Women and their Children. This is a good tool for reporting violence against women that can add photo as supporting evidence of the report, raising awareness on women's right and laws, and assessing the level of community perception on their violent experiences. Moreover, the system can also identify the location of the victims or person who send reports, and provide opportunities through job opportunity and shelter modules that can empower women and provide them home. The web application of the system can help the authorities to identify the different reports of the VAWC and locations through geo-mapping and its type. The developed system achieved its main purpose to help the community especially the women and children through a web and mobile application.
This study is beneficial to the Province of Laguna, especially to the offices of Provincial of Laguna-DILG, DSWD, GAD, PNP-Women Desk, and LGU for a centralized database of VAWC cases. It can also lead to the development of activities and programs in gender equality and violence, and policy statement informing all government agencies to conduct data monitoring violence in the community. As such, this study recommends for another series of tests and evaluation from the related government agencies to gather different inputs in assessing the developed system. Additionally, the response of the IT expert to collect more informative and technical features to deliver good application in the community especially to the VAWC. It is also highly recommended to conduct pilot testing in the local community or municipalities as basis and evidence in formulating specific ordinance and campaigns.