CAIRO: Though an ongoing societal problem, more and more women in Egypt have come forward in recent years to address the issue of sexual harassment and violence in their daily lives. Taboos have been tackled through grassroots activism, and women have worked to engage a constructive public discourse on the issue. However, another group– largely ignored and demonized in much of Egyptian society– suffers from untold instances of sexual abuse as well. For Egypt's gay population, sexual harassment is a daily struggle that has gone largely unreported. “He started using really flirty language and started to touch my legs a lot. Then he asked me to take my shoes off,” says Karim, a 20-year-old university student at Misr University for Science and Technology, recounting the sexual assault he suffered at the hands of a taxi driver. “I cried a lot. I didn't even know I was gay at the time,” he said. He was just 14 years old. Just as many women fail to report sexual assaults and rape in Egypt for fear or shame and embarrassment, the gay community in Egypt stands in the same predicament. However, Mostafa, an outgoing, lively, 20-year-old university student told Bikyamasr.com that he is not shy to talk about his experiences with sexual harassment. “It hasn't happened just once. I've been stalked and grabbed. I've had guys on the Metro try and rub their crotches in my butt. When I would move, they would follow me.” “Taxis have driven by me, catcalling and asking me how much for the night. One even tried to show me his penis. Once, I broke the window of a taxi after the driver wouldn't stop harassing me. I wear jeans and a t-shirt, just like everyone else,” he said. Both Mostafa and Karim share similar stories of cars driving by them with passengers inside trying to offer them money for sex, relentlessly harassing them. Sarah, a 24-year-old lesbian from Alexandria tells of similar abuses. “Many times as I walk alone, people harass me for simply being a woman. However, having short hair and being dressed in pants and shirts all the time adds something else to the daily problems,” she recounted. “I once was stalked for over 4 blocks by a group of young men, all talking about was which gender I was. One said I was a gay man and threw stones at me from the back before running away.” “Another time a man grabbed my ass in the street, telling his friend that he would prove that I am a woman if I have a ‘tender ass.' Every time these things happen, I go home and I cry myself to sleep, wishing I lived in a different country, thinking about other girls who go through the same,” Sarah continued. “I am unlucky as I get double the harassment. Never mind of course are the urges from everyone to look more feminine and let my hair grow and dress more appropriately. I am even told that I will go to hell if I continue to look like a boy,” she said. Though Egypt is in a state of societal overhaul since the January 25 Revolution that toppled the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, not much has changed for the nation's gay community. A Facebook group was recently created to hold a National Day of Egyptian Gays march in Tahrir Square on January 1, 2012. However, the page was flooded with angry comments, promising protestors violence and death if the march went through. Even liberal activists failed to support the movement, questioning whether now is the right time or place for “such a thing.” Meanwhile, abuses against gays in Egypt continue under the barrier of fear and silence. Hassan, a gay 24-year-old recent university graduate recounts his shaking sexual assault in a Cairo hotel. After meeting an acquaintance for a drink at the hotel bar, he was invited up to the man's room. The man gave him a mixed drink from what was seemingly a closed bottle. However, Hassan soon began to feel tired and dizzy. He expressed his discomfort and sat down to avoid fainting. Two other men came out from another part of the hotel room and started to try and undress Hassan. He fought and screamed, and with the little bit of consciousness and strength he had left, he was able to escape. The incident was an attempted rape– an attempted rape that will never be prosecuted nor reported because Hassan is gay. “They wouldn't care,” Hassan said simply when he was asked if he called the police. “If I tell them what happened they will say it's because I'm gay, and it's my fault.” Gays in Egypt have no protection from the law in situations like Hassan's. If they were to report a rape or a sexual assault, they themselves could even face imprisonment. In 2001, 52 allegedly gay men dubbed the “Cairo 52” were arrested on the Queen's Boat, a floating nightclub in Cairo. The event became a highly publicized news story. The men were charged with “habitual debauchery” and “obscene behavior,” along with “contempt of religion.” While in detention, officials performed anal examinations on the men to “test” whether they were homosexual– but more so to further humiliate them. 21 of the men were sentenced to three years in prison. The arrest of the Cairo 52 further stigmatized an already discriminated population in Egypt. It made many men who were beginning to feel as though they could live some sort of normal life lose all hope. Homosexual acts and acts of harassment and sodomy have been used as a deliberate act of torture practiced by Egyptian security officials. In 2006, a graphic video surfaced on the Internet of Imad Kabir, a mini-bus driver, being sodomized with a stick by police officers in an Egyptian police station as he pleaded for them to stop. The police officers took the video with the intention of showing it to Kabir's co-workers to further his embarrassment. Kabir was later sentenced to jail time for resisting arrest. The latest case of such torture is that of Essam Atta, who died from internal bleeding after being repeatedly sodomized by prison guards who used water hoses to pump soap and water into his mouth and anus. Sexual harassment in Egypt is ostensibly aimed toward anyone who appears as if they cannot fight back– young teenage boys, foreign and Egyptian women alike, and even those in a cell. The longer society oppresses sexuality, the more hostile the society becomes. When a young man is told he cannot date, touch, or even see a woman because of the evils that will ferment, the more frustrated that young man is to become. With frustration comes aggression, and with aggression comes the surety that others will suffer. Under constant fear of persecution, arrest and abandonment, Egypt's gay community remains silent. There is no one to turn to, because when you have something to hide, you have that much more to fear. “It's not about the government giving us our rights,” says Hassan. “It's about the people themselves starting to accept us as normal people. I'll deal with the harassment that will come from being out as long as I can live as I wish.” BM
