CAIRO: Any Egyptian revolutionary can tell you that the demands of the January 25 revolution are nowhere near met, but the past 18 months has brought with it a tsunami of realization of rights. The Egyptian people have realized that they have rights; they've had a taste of what saying no to unfairness feels like and they aren't planning on staying quiet in the face of injustice anymore. The incident during the Eid el-Fitr celebrations in 2006, when girls were brutally sexually assaulted by a male mob, was the first to truly shed light on the topic of sexual harassment. Even though sexual violence had been on the rise even before the incident, that specific event created mass panic and was a wake-up call for Egyptians. It quickly illustrated the severity of the problem and since then any public holiday automatically triggers an alarm for women, and more and more decided to stay in each year in an attempt to avoid sexual violence. Harassers seem to be more confident in groups and strolling down the streets during religious holidays and scouting out potential victims has become almost a tradition. More and more powerful initiatives made up of men and women of all ages and socio-economic classes have come together to fight the social disease called sexual harassment. They are utilizing every possible medium to shed light on this problem and getting people talking. From staging protests and marches to art exhibitions, social platforms, online campaigns, conferences and events they are doing everything possible to raise awareness. Every year since 2006 we have heard bits and pieces of stories of women sexually assaulted during public holidays in the media, but this year was different. This was the year youth groups decided to take their battle against sexual violence to the streets where they decided to stand up and say enough. “Haraket Basma," or “Imprint Movement,” used social media to recruit volunteers willing to patrol metro stations protecting women from harassment. The patrolling was in coordination with metro authorities and participants had strict instructions not to assault harassers, but to stop them and report them to the proper authorities. The initiative kicked off on Sunday and ran through Tuesday last week and focused on those stations with the highest traffic. Apart from the occasional loud argument and the reluctance of many women to file official reports, the event was very successful; they were able to put an end to many of the incidents and also helped police arrest several harassers. Nihal Saad, one of the main organizers, blogged about planning for similar events in the future, but didn't give a time frame. Al Dostor party, a political party launched by Mohamed ElBaradei in April, was also active in the streets. They organized silent protests and held up signs with statements saying “no to sexual harassment” and highlighting the basic right for women to be safe in the street of their own country. The chains were organized during the first two days of Eid and took place in Shubra and downtown Cairo. For three days, thousands of people devoted time and energy to battle harassment. All offline and online media was filled with headlines related to the issue, the Internet and talk shows were flooded with videos and pictures documenting the horrors that women face. Apart from the occasional blog “disgusted" at the photographers' lack of foresight to blur the faces of females shown to be assaulted, the images spread online. These campaigns were extremely successful anti-sexual harassment Eid campaigns. Brave women are dragging attackers to court and bystanders are intervening to document the attacks to spread awareness. One year ago people rarely spoke of sexual harassment or dared to defend its survivors. Now, for every mass sexual assault in Tahrir Square, there's a thousand man protest demanding safer streets for women, for every sexist remark from a public figure asking survivors to cover up or face the consequences, there's half a dozen blog posts and articles praising their bravery and calling for laws to be enforced. The revolution is alive and well in the hearts of Egyptians and this new found hope for a better Egypt is stronger than for any new president to kill. The sad reality, however, is one of the unforgivable crimes of the previous regime in what they've done to the mentality of the Egyptian people, and sexual harassment is only one of the symptoms of their decades of bad governing and corruption. One strong anti-harassment campaign won't suddenly clean up Egyptian culture and bring it back to its glory, it's merely a step in the right direction. The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging it exists and now that parts of society have finally begun attacking the predator rather than blaming the victim, harassers will start thinking twice before groping the next innocent woman.
