Creating a safe digital space for women and girls facing gender based violence

Challenges

Laaha was built for users with limited digital literacy. Most are new to the internet, often first-time website users with experience limited to apps like WhatsApp. Many use shared devices, making it risky to browse culturally sensitive topics like gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, or to access support services.

For UNICEF country offices implementing Laaha, the original multisite structure of the platform made it difficult to manage content without triggering censorship from local authorities. Country-specific subsites often faced pressure to alter or restrict content. 

UNICEF needed a safer, simpler, more inclusive way to deliver Laaha to 12 countries and 14 languages, without fragmenting the editorial experience or increasing risk for women and girls using the platform.

Approach 

Laaha was more than just a platform; it was about creating a space where users felt safe and understood. This meant stripping back familiar UX patterns and rebuilding the experience around what felt intuitive and necessary to them.

Our starting point was a series of workshops with women and girls from humanitarian settings, focused on core questions: What feels natural to someone who’s never used a website? How does a digital space protect privacy without feeling clinical? When is it safer to let content stay quiet rather than make it visible? How do we motivate users to explore without making them feel pushed?

Every design and engineering decision came from the answers to these questions. Feedback cycles were reality checks, shaped by on-ground teams and actual users. Every rollout was paced around context and intent.

Solutions 

Designing for the user’s realities

Laaha was designed around the real-world constraints faced by women and girls with limited digital experience, often accessing the platform in unsafe or shared environments.

User research guided the design and creation of a simplified interface that makes it easy to browse content, find services, and use the platform with minimal friction.

To protect users, features like quick exit buttons, auto-redirects after inactivity, and region-based content controls were built in to reduce risk and thoughtfully manage the exposure to topics that can be culturally sensitive or stigmatized.  

Forms on Laaha were designed as a way for users to reflect, respond, and share feedback at their own pace. To support this, the system allows partial responses to be automatically submitted, removing the expectation of full completion so users can engage on their terms.

From multisites to contextual content delivery

We redesigned, built, and replaced Laaha’s country-specific multisite setup with a language-based architecture that adapts content based on both browser language and location cues. 

This allows the platform to deliver content in a user’s preferred language while accounting for regional differences in how sensitive topics are understood. For instance, Spanish speakers in Venezuela and Spain receive different versions of the same topic, reflecting local norms and lived realities.

This shift reduced the burden of manual language selection, improved usability for low-literacy users, and eliminated the need for duplicative country-based platforms.

It also helped avoid censorship pressures tied to national deployments. Editors now have granular control over what content appears in which regions, ensuring user safety while preserving the platform’s mission to offer open, culturally aware guidance on sensitive issues.

Hybrid rendering for a personalized and region-aware platform

To support dynamic, multilingual content that adapts to user context, Laaha uses a hybrid rendering approach. 

Pages with shared elements like the header, footer, and navigation use server-side rendering (SSR) to ensure consistency and load-time stability. 

Most region- and user-specific content is rendered client-side (CSR), enabling real-time personalization based on browser language and location detection.

Shifting to headless architecture 

Laaha was rebuilt using a headless architecture with a Drupal 10 backend and a Next.js frontend. The shift to a headless architecture allowed the frontend team to operate independently. This solved the problem of limited backend resources and tight budgets. It also helped the team improve the platform more cohesively over time. This flexibility made it easier to roll out design updates and support additional languages and regions as Laaha expanded to new countries.

Outcome and Impact 

Supporting peer-led learning communities 

In several regions, girls have begun forming informal Laaha groups,  using the platform as a safe space for learning, discussion, and mutual support, particularly in contexts where such topics are rarely addressed publicly.

Trusted by Educators 

Educators and community workers have started referencing Laaha as a reliable source for sensitive topics. The platform’s content is verified, accessible, and respectful of local contexts.

“They love that this is all verified information from a trusted source.”
— Representative of the UNICEF country office

Result of quiet access, powerful learning

The impact of Laaha is best understood through the voices of its users. During testing, girls and women shared that they often couldn’t ask about certain topics at home or in public. Features like language-based content delivery, simplified navigation, and anonymous access helped reduce fear and social pressure.

“In my house, it is not comfortable to ask about these topics. I am grateful to have a place where I can read about it.”
— 18-year-old, Venezuela

“I found it all interesting, because it leads me to be a better mother for the future.”
— 27-year-old, Iraq

“I felt the topics were not comfortable in school, but there were topics that I was looking for. I found them in Laaha, and I was able to understand them as well.”— 16-year-old, Lebanon

Some in-progress work 

We continue to work with the UNICEF team to make Laaha more responsive to user needs.

A Forum is currently being tested to create a moderated, anonymous space where users can safely connect with peers. The Survey Builder, also in testing, makes it easier to share feedback without pressure. Partial responses are saved automatically. 

A Progress Dashboard, now in development, will let users track what they’ve explored without revealing their identity and help teams understand what content works best across different regions. 

Everything is tested with real users before launch to ensure it feels safe, respectful, and easy to use. 

‍