Following widespread sexual harassment and physical assault against women, hindering women's development and participation for many years, Egypt's National Council for Women (NCW) proposed a new law against sexual harassment containing a minimum sentence of one-year imprisonment for first-time offenders. However, the proposed law is hardly a priority in the middle of the political unrest that Egypt has witnessed recently. Meanwhile, Egyptian women's rights movements decided to take matters in their own hands, countering the harassment and violence against women with their dynamic campaigns that are influencing the core of the culture and also with parallel efforts to push legislation by influencing policy-makers' agendas. The Fouada Watch is famous for the symbol of Fouada's character of the 1960's movie Shiaa min Al-Khof (A glimpse of fear) starring Shadia, the young peasant who stood up for her rights and the rights of the whole village against the tyrant ruler. The movement has its campaigns on the streets of Cairo calling women to protect their electoral voice and political rights. Fouada Watch was launched by the Centre for Advanced Means of Development (ACT Egypt) in June 2012 after Mohamed Morsi was elected president, with aims to monitor his performance and legislation towards women's rights. ACT was founded 1993 by Azza Kamal, a writer with a mission to work on the development of women all over Egypt. Their earliest projects were in Mainial Sheeha, Al-Badrasheen and Al-Hawamdia where they worked on basic development and awareness of women. ACT functions are supervised by 17 official employees and around 3,000 volunteers, says Kamal. Shoft Taharoush is the second big campaign carried out by ACT established in October 2012, to counter sexual harassment and excessive violence against women on the streets by reporting it to a hotline that provides immediate support to victims. Kamal talks about the development of ACT: “Today 85 per cent of our members are youth and they are the dynamic catalysts in achieving women's rights and to counter sexual harassment.” Although ACT started more than 20 years ago the real transformation for the entire feminist movement and for all civil community development was recently illustrated by the support of social media. Fouada Watch page population on Facebook is around 7,500 members and Shoft Tahroush has about 16,000 fans. Aside from free self defence classes, provided by professional trainers in many poor areas all over Egypt, “ACT is also concerned with the unbalanced representation of women in the government and in the new constitution committee since there is no female representation in the 10-member committee of the constitution and only five members on the 50-member committee. They also have not appointed any female governors even after the June Revolution that the role of women was major in its development,” Kamal said. ACT recently presented a petition along with the “Women's Parliament” NGO to the 50-member committee signed by 40,000 women from all over Egypt. Harass Map is a volunteer-based initiative launched in 2010 that aims to end the social acceptability of sexual harassment in Egypt. They work by using online and mobile technologies that support their network of volunteers in 15 governorates across Egypt to mobilise the public to be watchful against sexual harassment and to take action by speaking up against it. Harass Map also uses SMS and online reports of sexual harassment and assault and maps them on the “HarassMap” to show people the scale of the problem and to knock down excuses for sexual harassment, like for example how women dress or that sexual frustration are the main reasons for sexual harassment. The project has 700 volunteers all over Egypt who take Harass map and go into their own neighbourhoods, and talk to people with a permanent presence on the streets, like doormen, women, shopkeepers, kiosk owners — people who influence the culture of that street. Harass Map also conducts research to monitor and understand the status of sexual harassment in Egypt. They also have an interactive community of 21,000 members on Facebook, supporting and spreading their initiative. Nazra for Feminist Studies, funded by 11 women since 2005, with aims to build an Egyptian feminist movement, believes that feminist rights is a political and social issue affecting freedom and the development of society. Nazra has 40 full-time and part-time employees and is supported by a big community of hundreds promoting Nazra's vision. They have produced many knowledge-based research and documents monitoring human and women rights issues. They also provide legal and psychological interventions to women who suffered sexual harassment or violence. Mozn Hassan, Nazra's executive director, says “The feminist movement achieved a lot in the development of public speech and noticeable increase of interests in gender issues discussions. And now Nazra works on keeping the public talking and interest in women and human rights. Nazra's success comes from being decentralised and its wide outreach due to corporation with many youth groups in different Egyptian governorates like the youth movement in Aswan, “Ganoubia Hura”, and many other groups in Dekhila, Sohag and Assiut, Hassan adds. Nazra's executive director praises the increased male participation and increase of male volunteers to support women's issues, especially during demonstrations and times where sexual harassment usually occurs. Part of Nazra's mission is to contribute to Egypt's legislation after the revolution. It is part of the “women and the constitution group” that has revised and compared 60 international constitutions discussing human and women's rights, and presented a summary to the 50-member committee with their suggestions on constitutional amendments. Hassan adds, “We accept the National Council of Women representation in the constitution committee, however, our agendas are not totally aligned, so we hope to communicate our suggestions through Hoda Al-Sadda”. Nazra, is pro the electoral list, but with conditions of granting women priority on the electoral lists.
