CAIRO: Egyptian human rights and legal activists for women’s rights called on the Egyptian government to issue severe penalties and the criminalization of sexual harassment of women in the street and in the workplace. They demanded that the labor and penal codes should include more “visible and deterrent penalties to whomever harasses a woman,” expressing their dissatisfaction with the continued worsening of the phenomenon of sexual harassment of girls and women in public parks and streets during holidays.

The activists said the government is liable for the aggravation of this phenomenon because of the spread “of a culture of political tyranny, impoverishment, unemployment and the collapse of the economic and social conditions.”

Farida al-Nakash, a political activist and Editor-in-chief of the Egyptian leftist newspaper al-Ahali, said that the authorities are not interested in the elimination or reduction of sexual harassment, likening it to “the story of football these days with Algeria” in order “to distract people from the political and economic failure.”

She said this failure with sexual harassment reveals the state and “the deterioration of moralities in the society.

“This is linked to manifestations of corruption, tyranny and social disruption on the one hand, and on the other, sexual harassment of women is an evidence of the collapse of the status of women in this society, as women are seen as a creature that provokes temptation and a second-class citizen, that must be besieged, either by the imposition of the veil or by forcing women to stay home,” she added.

Nakash added that that the harassment of women is a reflection of the “consumer culture created by the market system for many years, a system that considers women a commodity like other goods, for advertising and trade.” She stressed that everyone knows that the “capitalism that rules the world now is profiting from the prostitution trade and white slavery with billions of dollars.”

She pointed out that trafficking in women is the third largest global trade after arms and the drug trade. Nakash proposed that the solution to the phenomenon of sexual harassment of women is to change the economic and social policies and transition to a democratic society, “in order to turn the society from a consumer into a producer.” She accused religious institutions of passivity towards women’s rights, as they are promoting the principle that women are something to be “ashamed” of  and are not human beings with full rights, saying the institutions “did not even issue a fatwa to criminalize sexual harassment of women.”

According to the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights in a recent report, 98 percent of foreign women, and over 60 percent of Egyptian women are subjected to daily sexual harassment, and the center accused the police of “negativity” and that police “do not cooperate enough and watches the harassers without taking a step against them.”

Mona Ezzat, another human rights activist and director of the unit of raising awareness at Cairo’s New Women’s Institute, said that the harassment of women is not confined to the parks and streets in festivals and these events, but “extends to harassment in the workplace, educational institutions, in the context of an increasing violence in society where women are considered just another commodity,” pointing out that this phenomenon reveals that the man is “the stronger party and exercises control on women as the weaker party as means to unload the repression practiced by the government and by promoters of Wahhabi extremist religious culture.

She stressed that the government and conservatives treat women as a “commodity,” echoing Nakash’s argument.

For his part, Gamal Eid, Executive Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) believes that stiffening penalties for harassers is not enough by itself, stressing the need for changing the cultural and social atmosphere also against women. He accused religious scholars of “addressing issues that serve the authority and of being, oblivious to serious issues of this kind.”

BM

Keep advertising off Bikya Masr - donate $1 to allow this to be possible