Sexual harassment: an ever-growing rampant issue in Egypt. Egyptian women are now scared to leave the comfort of their own home, scared of the lustful gazes, scared of the vulgar remarks thrown at them and scared of the inappropriate touching. According to a report published by The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, 99.3% of Egyptian women have experienced some sort of sexual harassment, 96.5% have experienced sexual harassment through the form of touching, while 95.5% have experienced sexual harassment in the form of verbally abusive language.
Only 6.6% have reported their sexual harassment to the security forces. The phenomena has increased drastically these past few years and it doesn’t look it’s going to end any time soon. “Why is it increasing?” is the question on all our minds. I like to believe it’s a mixture of different factors. The lack of education, illiteracy, and poverty. I also think it’s because of toxic masculinity. Egyptian men like to be dominant, they like to have the upper hand, and they want to be the superior individual. What better way to establish dominance than to violate the personal space of women? They are used to a culture of dominance and authority over a woman’s body in public and private spaces.
The most important factor of them all in my point of view is the social acceptance and tolerance of the rampant issue. Instead of punishing the harasser for his actions, they condone his behavior and blame the woman because she was asking for it as she was wearing “provocative” clothing. However that is not the case as women who wear the hijab and niqab are also victims of sexual harassment. By this men will be used to a culture of impunity, a culture where women are humiliated and disgraced when men do shameful things to them. Egyptian women have decided that enough is enough. They are standing up for their rights, their rights to roam the streets freely without fear.
In May 2012, a group of activists made a street campaign against sexual harassment called “I Wish”. Approximately 80 people joined the campaign where each one wrote a simple message on a piece of paper and held it along the streets of Cairo. In June 2015, Egypt released its first anti-harassment TV ad called “Harasser = Criminal” which encourages people to stand up against sexual harassment and intervene upon witnessing an incident of sexual harassment. Egypt needs a huge cultural shift before anything starts changing. In the meanwhile, I want every Egyptian woman to speak up and spread awareness. We will not be silenced. We will not be easy prey anymore.
