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." ** This article was originally published in December 2011. BM Egypt's newly elected President Mohamed Morsi has the opportunity to move forward and revamp the country's stance on Nile Basin water issues. The Morsi presidency can do wonders for Egypt's position in the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), which in recent years has seen it obstinate in negotiating with partner nations in East Africa. Morsi, as the country's first freely elected president, can achieve more than commentators are giving him credit for. As a humble “servant" of the people, he should also look at means to recreate and bring together Nile River nations to boost regional cooperation. But he faces an uphill battle. Last year, the interim Egyptian government said it would oppose an Ethiopian plan to erect a damn along its territory's Nile water, leaving many to question where diplomacy is headed in terms of the world's longest river. Egypt claims it cannot give up their share of water, as it could lead to water shortages in the future. The irony is that while government officials and commentators give a doomsday scenario explaining why the country must maintain its dominance of the Nile's water, millions of Egyptians suffer from water shortages on a daily basis. Today. Not five years from now. Just ask Adel Mohamed, a 44-year-old handyman who lives on the outskirts of Cairo. He told me that last summer, weeks went by when his family and no access to running water. “I worry about what is coming this summer," he said. The cause for the water cuts, he and his neighbors argue, is the new upscale developments being erected for Egypt's wealthiest people. The area's inhabitants said water was being redirected and new pipes had yet to be built for the area. On one level, in the recent history of Egypt, officials and commentators are right to fear water shortages. It is easy to see who they are fearful for: those with the economic power. This is why they do not want to re-negotiate a treaty that would see the country lose any of the water currently allocated to the country under a 1959 treaty with Sudan. That treaty is the continuation of the British Water Nile Agreement of 1929 – brokered by the British when they were the colonial power. Egypt was guaranteed 48 billion cubic meters of water. Following the 1959 deal, which did little more than reaffirm Egypt and Sudan's right to a majority of the Nile, this was increased to 55.5 billion cubic meters, while Sudan is allotted 14.5 billion cubic meters. Egypt, as the regional leader, politically and economically, could truly become a leader under the Morsi presidency if it were willing to go beyond the desire to keep a treaty first created by its colonial overlords. Cairo could create something with the NBI that would truly transcend borders. They have to be willing to look for compromises. If their willing, that is. The NBI's main funder, the World Bank, has said it will not go along with any projects in upstream nations unless Egypt agrees. With a veto power, Egypt has the ability to stall development along the Nile. There are other options, however, such as desalination efforts that could be made to reduce Egypt's reliance on the Nile. According to the Egyptian Water Partnership, some 95 percent of the country's drinking and irrigation water comes from the Nile. This has to change. The Egyptian government could come to a deal with the other NBI nations that would see them reduce their Nile resources in favor of erecting desalination plants along the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea. This would give Egypt the ability to increase water output – or keep it at around the same figure – without depriving upstream nations of their ability to develop and improve agricultural output. Burundi's Environment and Water Minister Degratias N'Duimana told me last year that his nation, and other upstream countries, “are struggling to improve our infrastructure and agriculture sectors because we can't develop industries or irrigation lines from the Nile because Egypt won't let us and there is no money for these projects." The trump card falls to Cairo. With desalination however, Egypt could provide a sustainable amount of water along the Red Sea coast that would end the transport of water from the Nile to the coast, hours away. Khaled AbuZeid, director of the Egyptian Water Partnership, agreed. “There needs to be a look into desalination projects in Egypt, because that would give the country another source," he began, “because it could really be a huge boost to Egypt's water needs. It is expensive, but in the long run, it might make these discussions easier if Egypt is seen as looking for alternatives." The World Bank could help fund such projects. And at the same time it would show that Egypt is willing to come to terms as the region's leader. By compromising and establishing alternative solutions, the partnerships that Egypt could help create along the Nile would go a long way when those deadly water shortages come. It could avoid potential war. By negotiating and developing a new treaty that would give upstream nations greater access to the world's largest river, Egypt would signal a new era of partnership and understanding in a region fraught with anger and frustration. If they fail, the region could quickly turn toward violence and posturing. There must be a new way along the Nile and Egypt must make an effort to resolve the crisis before it becomes unmanageable. Nations are angry and Cairo must make amends, or face the consequences of upstream nations going it alone. That could me more dangerous to Egypt's “national security" than finding a solution now. If Egypt is to show the world, and the region, that a change in regime is a real change, revamping and compromising over Nile water would be an important first step and Morsi could lead that change.
