đź’° Salary: ÂŁ40,000 - 45,000 pro-rata, depending on experience
Application deadline: June 9th 2025
We are seeking a researcher to join us in exploring how “intimacy” is understood across different cultures. In this role, you’ll collaborate closely with our Head of Movement Building and Policy.
This is an exciting opportunity for a researcher with expertise in trauma-informed methodologies to deepen their skills and make a meaningful impact. You can be based anywhere in the world, but experience working in the Global South and across diverse cultural contexts is essential. Given the sensitive nature of this research, we’re looking for someone with significant experience working alongside survivors of gender-based violence, particularly those from minoritised and marginalised backgrounds.
Chayn is an award-winning, open-source collective that leverages technology to empower women against violence and oppression so they can live happier and healthier lives. Chayn started in 2013 to provide survivors of abuse with accurate, diverse and accessible information.
Since our beginnings, over half a million people have accessed our award-winning work online, generating 1.2 million page views. Up to 70% of our volunteers are survivors of abuse which means not only are our projects user-centred–they are user-led. We are experts in trauma-informed work and have developed trauma-informed design principles that we apply at every level of the organisation from HR through to user research, through to UX/UI. We are one of the few feminist technology projects tackling gender-based violence while creating and maintaining openly-licensed products and code.
While we’ve been going for nearly 10 years, Chayn was entirely volunteer-led until 2020 when we started to grow our team of paid staff. We are now a core team of 11, with up to 10 supporting contractors working together remotely from all over the world.
While image-based abuse is often associated with sexual content or nudity, cultural context plays a crucial role in what can be deeply harmful to survivors. In some societies, a photo of a woman without her hijab or holding hands with a man who is not her husband can be just as devastating. However, under many laws currently implemented or being drafted in the Global North, survivors in these situations often have no legal recourse, as such images are not classified as “sexual” or do not contain nudity. Likewise, many technology platforms fail to recognize the harm in these cases, making it difficult for survivors to have the images removed.
To address this gap, we are embarking on a long-term, open research project to build a cultural map of what “intimate” means around the world. You will be engaging survivors and experts through workshops, interviews, surveys, social media and also monitoring news and discussions on social media forums. The findings will be published as the research progresses.
To ensure we’re getting a comprehensive and in-depth picture of the nature of the harms and the tactics used by those who perpetrate image-based abuse, we are going to start with a few countries in a region (as well as its diaspora abroad) before moving on to another region. We will begin with Pakistan in South Asia due to our extensive network of partners there who are also actively working on this issue, before working with partners in neighbouring countries.
We therefore expect the work on this project to take place over several segments. The first segment will be the research focusing on Pakistan to be completed by November 2025.
Across this segment, you would be:
The Head of Movement Building and Policy will provide support and guidance in identifying interviewees and interview questions. She - or other members of the team - will be present during the interviews.
The biggest challenge with this position will be to work in a trauma-informed way on a sensitive topic in a country where you may have limited experience working in. You will also have to complete a report that reflects the full extent of your findings by a set deadline.
It’s important that all team members have an understanding of intersectionality and systems of oppression and an affinity with Chayn’s aims and organisational values which can be found here.
Some examples of our products are:
🌺 Bloom - A remote trauma support service, offering video courses and reflective webchat that combine the insights of survivors globally with therapeutic practices to support survivors in healing from trauma. We currently have partnerships with Bumble and Badoo where we offer their users bespoke Bloom programmes of support.
đź“– Manipulation is abuse - A guide for survivors and allies, to help identify manipulative situations and offer suggestions on ways to deal with them.
đź“– How to build a domestic abuse case without a lawyer - A practical guide to collecting and presenting evidence for divorce, criminal cases and/or child custody. Available in English, Arabic, Urdu, Italian, and Portuguese.
Research and thought leadership
đź“– Orbits: a guide on how we can design interventions to tech abuse that are intersectional, survivor-centred, and trauma-informed. Co-created with thinkers, practitioners, and survivors from around the world, the guide focuses on three areas that are vital for effectively tackling tech abuse: technology, research, and policy. It explores how systems are failing survivors and how we can advance a different approach that leaves no survivor behind.
đź“– Trauma-informed design: One of the many write-ups of our design principles and the accompanying white paper
Products and services for organisations
🗞️ Bloom for Bumble and Badoo programme is an industry-first partnership where Chayn is providing a customised version of our remote trauma support service Bloom to their community.
🗞️ Training for organisations on vicarious trauma for their staff. This is especially useful for humanitarian workers, frontline gender-based violence organisations, customer support staff and content moderators.
Changing media narratives
Our CEO is a media spokesperson and regularly talks to broadcast and print media about stories to do with gender-based violence and online safety. You can see some recent examples here: LBC, BBC News, HuffPo, BBC, Vice and Forbes.
At Chayn, inclusion and accessibility are at the core of our work. We welcome applicants from all walks of life. Given the nature of our courses and our audience, we encourage applications from those who grew up in the Global South (or Majority World).
We also encourage applications from people of colour, LGBTQ+ people (we are a trans-inclusive organisation), people with disabilities, and people who have experienced other exclusion or marginalisation. Up to 70% of our team members are survivors of abuse so if you are one too and are thinking to apply, know that you will be in a safe and affirming space.
We have tried to make this recruitment process as accessible as possible, but know that there might be more that we can do, particularly if you have experienced exclusion, disadvantage or discrimination, or if you have particular accessibility needs. We would be happy to provide any further support that you may require - please get in touch with us and we can think together about how to make this process easier for you.
This work will be undertaken on a freelance basis, we are unable to sponsor visas.
In addition to compensation, Chayn offers:
Hours
This contract will fixed-term until end of November 2025 with a possibility for extension to focus on other segments of the project.
We take the wellbeing of our team very seriously so part of the interview process will be to discuss ideas for managing this well.
We’re happy to welcome people to become part of our team as a freelance contractor (based anywhere) or as an employee on a PAYE basis, for which you must be based in the UK and have a valid work permit. We are unable to sponsor visas.
Chayn is a fully remote organisation.
This work will be undertaken on a freelance basis, we are unable to sponsor visas.
In addition to compensation, Chayn offers:
To apply, please click the 'Apply' button..
Please read this document and give it some thought before applying to work with us.
Then send us:
Recruitment stages:
Recruitment will be subject to the receipt of 2 references.