CAIRO: In the face of rising sexual harassment, Egyptian women are struggling to cope with life in the North African nation. Marking the one-year anniversary of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) report on harassment in Egypt, Bikya Masr details how little has changed for women here. The report by the ECWR titled “Clouds in Egypt’s Sky†showed that 98 percent of foreign women and over 60 percent of Egyptian women are harassed on a daily basis. The study was conducted on a sample of more than 2000 women in a number of governorates. It is the holidays that brings out the worst harassment and sexual assaults. Twice in the past three Eid holidays – the 4 day holiday that marks the end or Ramadan – hundreds of women have been attacked by men in very public places. Last year, women were attacked in a popular street in the Mohandiseen area in Cairo, nearly two years to the date since a downtown incident near a cinema sparked the beginning of a serious debate over sexual harassment in the country. According to eyewitness accounts, around 150 boys and young men attacked women on the street, ripping at female bystanders’ clothes in the country’s worst sexual harassment incident since the October 24, 2006, downtown Cairo attacks. Women reported groping, inappropriate touching and even worse. Veiled women had their clothes torn off by the attackers who once again used the mob scene to create widespread fear and terror. One woman who wears the niqab – the veil that covers the entire face – reported men grabbing at it in an attempt to tear it off her face. In October 2006, during the Eid celebrations that follow the Holy Month of Ramadan, dozens of young men and boys attacked any woman in the area in the heart of downtown Cairo, ripping and groping women in the area. Shopkeepers were forced to open their doors and allow the victims to escape the terror. As defined by the ECWR, sexual harassment is “unwanted sexual conduct deliberately perpetrated by the harasser, resulting in sexual, physical, or psychological abuse of the victim regardless of location, whether in the workplace, the street, public transportation, educational institution, or even in private places such as home or in the company of others such as relatives or colleagues, etc.†But, even still, the government and police have done little to enforce the laws in place, which call for up to one-year in prison and a hefty fine for perpetrators. “The police chief told another man ‘what if this were to happen to a foreigner or even an ambassador’s wife? Then we would have a problem.’ I felt as if I was being demeaned because I was Egyptian,†said an Egyptian woman who recently took an incident to a local police office. She argued that the police do not seem to put much weight when it comes to average Egyptians complaining of harassment. And it is Egyptian women who face the brunt of harassment on a daily basis. ECWR agrees, saying that “not addressing this problem leads to total injustice, especially since victims often hesitate to report incidents for lack of confidence in the legal system or fear of being blamed herself.†But, the discourse is not being heard by some men in government. Mohsen Reda, an Egyptian member of Parliament, argued that women should be dressed more modestly as “a lot our youth can’t afford marriage, so it is only normal for some harassment to take place.†A fully veiled woman seems to be dressed modestly, women argue, disagreeing with sentiments that avoid placing blame on men. “Of course he is talking about another nation. If you walk down the street you will see the truth: women are modest,†said a retired mother of two women. BM
