CAIRO: Disagreeing about the reasons behind the increased rate of sexual harassment, participants of a roundtable discussion held at the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR) stressed the need to define what constitutes harassment in a draft law that would criminalize the practice and impose harsher sentences. The draft law calls for a LE 1,000 ($170) fine and a one-year prison sentence for those who perpetrate harassment against women in public or in the workplace. The existing laws do not give much weight for verbal harassment and consider intentional touching to be a "sexual assault. On the morning of the same day the discussion was held, a Cairo court handed a three-year sentence to a man accused of sexual harassment. Although the case was publicized as the first sexual harassment court case, the man was charged with sexual assault because he had touched the woman in question. Legal and legislative experts, MPs and social analysts, discussed three draft laws to be presented to the parliament: One from the ECWR; one from the state-affiliated National Council for Women; and the third from National Democratic Party member and MP Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah. The three draft laws agreed on the importance of enforcing the existing laws and hardening them. However the discussions revealed disagreements on key issues. Nehad Aboul Qomsan, the ECWR s chairwoman, highlighted the need for a clear definition for sexual harassment and pointed out that harassment is a direct result of the absence of a law in respect to what goes on in the streets. In his speech, Kwaitah blamed the indecency of some women's appearance for the increased number of sexual harassment incidents. Aboul Qomsan responded later by saying that the study ECWR conducted showed that 31 percent of women who were harassed were veiled, which negates the presumption that harassment is associated with how women dress. Kwaitah was not alone in moving blame away from men for the problem. Yousry Mohamed Bayoumy, a Muslim Brotherhood MP, blamed unemployment and the media for much of the problems. Bayoumy told the Daily News Egypt that it is "a moral problem that our society faces as a result of drifting away from religion. Fardouse Al Bahnassy, a development consultant, said that the problem of sexual harassment is not new, but in recent years has increased to a much larger scale. She blamed the growing wave of Wahabism, the ultra-strict Islamic ideology that originated in Saudi Arabia, for emphasizing a demand for a conservative dress code among women, which in turn changed how society views them. "The problem is hierarchal as well; men are oppressed by the authorities and they in turn oppress women in their family or strangers in public. It's a violent cycle, Bahnassy told Daily News Egypt on the sidelines of the meeting. Many of the experts opposed Article 17 of the current law and asked for it to be removed. The article gives judges the right to undercut the verdict if they see it suitable in sexual assault crimes based on their personal understanding of the case and the evidence given.
