App-Elles®: an app to prevent sexist and sexual violence

September 5th 2025

In Vie sur les campus

Since 2022, the City of Liège has been offering an app for victims and witnesses of gender-based and sexual violence. Already in use in some thirty countries, App-Elles makes it easy to alert family and friends and/or the police to a situation of distress, danger or emergency.

With the support of l'AGEL (Association Générale des Étudiants Liégeois), the City of Liège is offering an application that can be used to directly alert the police or relatives in a critical situation: the road you're taking doesn't reassure you, you meet someone you know could be violent, the person you're with is showing signs of aggression, you can't call and you'd like to be contacted or reached, you feel in great moral distress ... The App-Elles application is designed to meet the assistance and support needs of victims and witnesses faced with a situation of present, past or potential violence.

How does it work?

The App-Elles application enables trusted contacts to alert each other and connect in real time. Users must first invite each other and agree to connect. Each user can only have a maximum of 3 protégés and 3 protectors. The purpose of this limit is to reinforce each user's role. Once the network of trust has been created, the triggering of an alert automatically sends an SOS to the various protectors. These protectors then receive a simultaneous audible warning via push notification to inform them that one of their protégés needs their help: they can identify the contact in distress, locate his or her address, track his or her position in real time and listen to the sounds and voices picked up by his or her mobile's microphone.

How do I trigger an alert?

There are several ways to trigger an alert: via the app's SOS button, via an SOS widget that you can place and resize on your phone's main screen, with your smartphone's "power" button (not available on iPhone), via connected objects..

When they receive the alert, your protectors can either call for help on your behalf and pass on precise information about the situation, or decide to join you if the situation allows or requires it.

Report evidence of violence

The App-Elles application can also be used to launch alerts with the sole aim of recording an event or discussion that could help to confound the perpetrator of malicious acts or recurring violence: insults and name-calling by an acquaintance, threats and blackmail by a relative, intimidation at work, street harassment...