CAIRO: One more holiday in Egypt, another sexual harassment outbreak. Egyptians celebrate the end of Ramadan Eid feast by heading to the street, watching films and paying family visits, but it also brings memories of earlier holidays' painful memories of masses of young boys and men, in a crazed frenzy, attacking scores of innocent women on Cairo’s streets, ripping their clothes, groping them and sexually assaulting female bystanders. It is a time of remembrance for these women, when mobs of young men attacked female bystanders in 2006 and 2008. However, during this recent Eid, Egypt witnessed a small number of sexual harassment cases that were not as widespread as previous years, but still scary. Security forces in Cairo and Giza established two security campaigns, including deploying 630 recruits and 220 officers to combat possible harassment outbreaks. The first campaign was launched by security services in Cairo, in downtown and along the Nile areas, with the participation of members of the secret police wearing civilian clothes in order to combat possible male intransigence. It resulted in uncovering 237 cases of sexual harassment. The second security campaign was organized by the traffic directorate of Giza in collaboration with Cairo Traffic directorate to facilitate traffic in the areas of congestion in order to limit the number of individuals on streets. But, during the third and final day of Eid, many areas in Cairo witnessed waves of sexual harassment against girls and women, despite the heavy security presence. In front of cinemas, parks and main streets a number of women and girls cited being touched, hassled and sworn at by men and boys in the country's most recent sexual harassment incident to go public. The main locations of this harassment was in downtown Cairo, the Nile promenade and popular streets across the city. The main perpetrators were kids no older than 20-years-old. Exact details of what occurred are still being investigated, but a number of girls confirmed that they were groped and attacked by teenage boys during the holiday period. “I was touched and had some terrible things said to me when I was walking with my family,” said one Egyptian girl who demanded the government intervene to stop these crimes. “It happens to much and the government needs to take action.” This year, the perpetrators did not follow similar tactics as years past, when they would surround a group of girls, in large spaces so as not to focus the attention of others on them. This year, the molesters devised a new method, based on monitoring girls from afar, and then unleashed a flood of words at them in order to monitor the reactions of people present in the street before the touching of different parts of the bodies began. A number of reports indicated that the boys would run after the girls if they attempted to evade the perpetrators. The efforts of the campaign did result in the seizure of 237 young boys on charges of “hassling, flirting and harassing” women. Sexual harassment has become a major concern for women's activists and average women in Egypt, who have long talked about the difficulty of walking the streets of their own country. **reporting by Mohamed Abdel Salam BM
