CAIRO: 99.3 percent of Egyptian women have faced sexual harassment – according to a study by UN Women. This may be hard to believe for those who have not visited Egypt but as an Egyptian woman, I can assure that this is not an exaggeration. Egyptian women are no strangers to sexual harassment. As a matter of fact, it has become a daily occurrence for the most of us. Not to say that this makes it easier to cope with. On the contrary, the accumulating effect of regular harassment is one that leaves the victim feeling objectified, abused and demeaned. Not to mention the paranoia, feeling targeted by the slightest, most minute gestures, after many a time when those harmless gestures were followed by verbal or even physical harassment. It is no exaggeration when a woman in Egypt says she feels like prey. It is also a well-known fact that most of those cases are unaccounted for, whether it is verbal or physical harassment, many women ignore it. As when they try to protest by yelling or even threatening to contact law enforcement, they are either reprimanded by people who usually try to meddle to "fix the situation", either encouraging them to let the incident go in fear that a criminal record will ruin the young man's future or trying to shame the victim by telling her that her clothing or demeanor were provocative. Two young women, earlier this June, were sexually harassed then physically assaulted after they stood with "Free Hugs" signs. They decided to go to the nearest police station and in the presence of the father of one of the young women who happened to be a lawyer, they were blatantly threatened that if they were to press charges against the man who attacked them – slapping one of them across the face – he and his family will also press charges of public indecency. The police officers backed him up and told them that this will be on their record. The young women dropped charges and only posted about the incident on social media networks. Many have said that sexual harassment is an epidemic in Egypt and this is not at all far from the truth. And so it is of no surprise that it was utilized to be yet another threat during protests. Going to a protest, we all put a few things into consideration, the weather, the prospect clashes, police forces trying to disperse the protest and sexual harassment. Since January 25th, 2011, this method has been used against female protesters, trying to minimize the number of people on the streets by scaring women from joining protests and men from leaving their families who now cannot join them. This method has been adopted by Mubarak, the SCAF and the MB alike, especially when, as if in defiance, the numbers of female protesters grew even larger. And as this method to terrorize protesters was used more frequently, the number of sexual harassment cases grew phenomenally. By the 25th of January in 2012, activists were already reporting cases of systematic sexual harassment. Individuals who joined protests solely for the purpose of harassing women were more noticeable. I, personally, have witnessed this first hand as I was followed by the same man, who would take every chance possible to touch me, for a long time until I told my friend – loud enough for the harasser to hear me – that I would like to get away from this man in particular. It seems that things have gotten to a point where sexual harassment was not enough and this is when mob sexual assaults started happening. First, there were individual cases that happened on rare occasions. But these incidents quickly grew in number and became the primary reason for many women to avoid Tahrir altogether. Many recorded evidences of mob sexual assaults can be found on the internet and there have been plenty of published written accounts of incidents that were not recorded, told either by women who were victims of the assaults or men who tried to help stop it. 80 different cases of mob sexual assaults, at least two of them were rape cases, were reported by OpAntiSH on July 3rd alone! That is 80 different cases when one woman was assaulted by 10 men or more. There were 23 reported cases of this kind on the 2nd of July and 46 on the 30th of June. People's reactions to the assaults vary, of course. There are those who condemn this type of behavior and try as best as they can to help prevent it, and there are the ones that blame the victim – as many people do in response to sexual harassment – claiming that women should stay at home if they do not wish to be harassed. One comment in particular on a youtube video of a mob sexual assault caught my attention as it said "... If she wants to be free to do what she wants, she should understand that men will be free to rape her if they so choose." I could not get my head around the fact that the concept of "freedom" can be so distorted in someone's mind. That a woman demanding to be free can actually be threatened in such a way and that the person posing said threat can actually believe this is a logical thing to say. It should not be so surprising, keeping in mind that 99.3% of Egyptian women have been sexually harassed at least once, but one cannot help but be unable to comprehend the logic behind such hatred. Three different online initiatives – Harassmap, TahrirBodyGuard and OpAntiSH – have caught media attention for their use of social media networks to try and help with the rising number of sexual harassment cases, whether it is during demonstrations or on daily basis. Each of the three initiatives has their own technique and does their best to raise awareness regarding sexual harassment, and prevent future incidents. Both OpAntiSH and TahrirBodyGuard have been accepting volunteers since June 30th and many have stepped in to volunteer with both initiatives. This has been one of the very few things to give Egyptian women hope regarding this matter. Many women know that there is still the threat of being sexually assaulted when going to a demonstration, but knowing that someone out there is willing to stand up for them and try to help them – even if they fail – somehow makes them feel safe. Not safe from sexual harassment per se, but at least safe from having to go through it alone. BN
