Dr Shaimaa Abdelkarim and Dr Rishika Sahgal partnered with Calico to explore the use of VR in challenging institutional responses to violence against women
Birmingham Law School researchers Dr Shaimaa Abdelkarim and Dr Rishika Sahgal are leading a new research project to investigate how virtual reality might open up new conversations about gender-based violence (GBV) and women's experience of urban public space. The research is being delivered in partnership with Calico, a Birmingham-based social enterprise founded by University of Birmingham alumni.
Calico had previously created a virtual reality experience called CurfewVR, which simulates the journey of a woman moving through Birmingham after dark. The tool was originally built to help police and transport workers understand the gendered experience of city travel at night. For this project, Drs Abdelkarim and Sahgal used it as a discussion prompt in community workshops delivered between September and November 2025 with 17 Birmingham-based community organisations, charities and civil society groups working in the GBV sector. This gave participants a shared experience from which to explore broader questions about how institutions respond to GBV and how urban spaces can be designed to better protect women.
A consistent theme across the workshops was skepticism towards conventional policy responses to GBV. Participants questioned whether approaches centered on policing and criminal prosecution effectively address the root causes of violence and raised concerns that such measures can place undue burden on women rather than tackling the conditions that allow harm to occur.
Participants also challenged the tendency to treat GBV purely as a problem between individuals, pointing to the role that institutions, infrastructure and urban environments play in shaping women's vulnerability and freedom of movement. Community-based responses were widely seen as central to any meaningful strategy, not simply as supplements to statutory services. It was also noted that factors including ethnicity, class and gender interact to shape who feels able to move through public space freely and who does not.
Speaking on the next phase of the project, Dr Abdelkarim and Sahgal said: “We are excited to continue to explore how emerging technologies such as virtual reality open up spaces to hold difficult conversations around appropriate responses to GBV and the gendered construction of public space; and to ensure that the experiences and voices of women in the global south are an integral part of these conversations.”
Learn more about the project in the Birmingham Law Blog
Assistant Professor in Law (Postcolonial Legal Theory and Critical Race Studies)
Biographical and contact information for Shaimaa Abdelkarim, Assistant Professor in Law at the University of Birmingham.
Assistant Professor in Law
Biographical and contact information for Dr Rishika Sahgal, Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham.
