Reem Leila reports on a schoolboy who was reportedly raped by his classmates Violence against school students tops a long list of discrimination and abuse against them on the schools' premises. Other crimes include beatings leading to death or permanent deformities of students either by their classmates or teachers. All these issues were extensively discussed in the media after three teenage boys, students in the Misr Al-Gadida School for Boys, were charged with raping Mohannad Noureddin Abdel-Fattah, a grade seven student, on the school's premises. Abdel-Fattah's father said two boys in ninth grade and one from grade seven assaulted his son. "They dragged him to the school's basement. Mohannad was forced to take off his clothes and thrown on the ground where one of the students started raping him, while the others were videotaping the incident with their mobiles." Abdel-Fattah who reported the incident to the police pointed to negligence by the school's headmaster. "He deleted the video on purpose and was content just to beat them," Abdel-Fattah said, referring to the principal. "I demand my son's rights and want the strictest penalty inflicted on them," Abdel-Fattah argued. Although Mohannad recognised the three students who reportedly assaulted him, the prosecutor set them free. At the same time, Mohannad has been sent to the Department of Forensic Medicine for examination in order to verify his accusations. The law for rape stipulates 15 years in prison with hard labour. If the victim of the rapist is under 16 and if the assailant is a relative, a guardian or a supervisor of the victim, the penalty could be increased to the maximum 25 years with hard labour or the death penalty. In 1999, People's Assembly (PA) Article 268 of the penal code stipulated that anyone who forces or threatens to rape or attempts to rape another person shall be liable to three to seven years in prison with hard labour. Medhat Mosaad, head of Cairo's Education Directorate, told Al-Ahram Weekly investigations are being conducted with the headmaster and the three students. "The headmaster has been temporarily transferred to an administrative job until the general prosecution's investigation is complete. The students have been suspended from school for three days," Mosaad stated. Mosaad refrained from giving further details while the incident is being investigated by both the general prosecution and the Education Ministry's administrative prosecution but he did say, "2011 will witness a new strategy to combat violence against pupils in schools which will include a protection bill and code of behaviour." According to Mosaad, Minister of Education Ahmed Zaki Badr paid a visit to the school where he inspected the basement where the rape allegedly took place. "Badr swept the school and interrogated almost every teacher, worker and employee," Mosaad revealed. According to Fawzia Abdel-Sattar, a law professor at Cairo University, the following figures might be shocking "but let's accept them as a true indication of a phenomenon that we tend to ignore or turn our back in fear of serious confrontation." Some 20,000 cases involving rape and sexual harassment are reported in Egypt every year, meaning almost 1,666 incident per month which is equivalent to 55.5 cases per day. Less than 10 per cent of these incidents were reported to the police as most people fear being humiliated. Nehad Abul-Qomsan, head of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR), stated that a recent UN report reveals that 25 per cent of boys and 50 per cent of young girls in the Middle East are exposed to sexual harassment of various kinds. Another report by the ECWR said that school students are more likely to be exposed to such aggression, pointing out that the rate of harassment targeting girls between 12 and 18 has been put at 22 per cent as compared to that of boys, at 13 per cent. Abul-Qomsan said sex-related crimes are now threatening Egyptian society, "a fact that should drive all concerned authorities to work on solving this threatening issue." Abul-Qomsan said she believed the phenomenon has spread as a result of the dissemination of video clips which broadcast songs showing pop stars in revealing attire, semi-nudity and sexually inspiring shots. "The Education Ministry should exert more effort to inculcate the necessary awareness while the social welfare authorities should take up the task of researching the causes of unemployment which is the major cause for late marriages," she said. "The Interior Ministry should also be involved as sexual repression is currently behind several security concerns. All concerned authorities should consider serious solutions for the entire file of sexual suppression in Egypt before the phenomenon gets out of hand," added Abul-Qomsan. According to another study undertaken by the National Centre for Sociological and Criminological Research in 2008, 30 per cent of students were subjected to violence, and 80 per cent of school violence occurs between students. According to Mohamed El-Mahdi, a psychiatric consultant based in Cairo, poverty also plays an important role with regards to the creation of violence. However, despite the global economic crisis which is currently affecting the entire world without exception, Egyptian schools are not over-affected by this, since El-Mahdi said, "they reached rock bottom long ago. "There is a strong correlation between poverty and violence. The poor suffer from a higher degree of deprivation. They try to remedy this but when this fails they feel disappointment which in turn festers into anger, and this is the main cause of violence which occurs between students."
