CAIRO: Six stitches on the right hand’s palm and the mark of the wound is still discernable over a week since being thrown against a car in downtown Cairo. Dina, who’s name has been changed for her protection, was trying to catch one of the new film releases that mark the Eid al-Fitr holiday – the festival that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan – when groups of men surrounded her and other girls in the area, and began to sexually harass them.

“It was like a war and I had no idea what was going on until they started to grab my butt, breasts and every inch of my body,” said Dina as she walked along Taalat Harb street in downtown Cairo, the location of the incident on October 24, 2006.

“I sprayed the boys with my pepper spray but they kept coming. I ended up finding a car that was parking on the roadside and got in, but before I could one of the guys grabbed my butt and I slipped, cutting my hand.

She said about 50 young men began to move about hysterically following the closure of the ticket office at the theater and started to harass the women in the area, in the early evening, around seven at night.

“I saw other girls having the same things happen to them … it was chaos and the guys were going crazy with their touching and groping,” she added.

Sexual harassment is one of Egypt’s most enduring social pandemics. The incident in 2006 sparked widespread anger and frustration among the country’s women’s activists, but it also created the means for the problem to be made public. But, it didn’t stop with the Eid holiday in 2006.

Eid 2008

The Eid holiday that marks the end of Ramadan is a time of celebration and coming together across the Islamic world, but in Egypt it has turned into a time of sexual harassment fears. These fears were confirmed for the second time in three years on October 2 when over 100 young men and boys attacked women in the streets of a middle-class Cairo neighborhood.

According to eyewitness accounts, around 150 boys and young men attacked women on the street, ripping at female bystanders’ clothes in the country’s worst sexual harassment incident since the October 24, 2006, downtown Cairo attacks.

Women reported groping, inappropriate touching and even worse. Veiled women had their clothes torn off by the attackers who once again used the mob scene to create widespread fear and terror. One woman who wears the niqab – the veil that covers the entire face – reported men grapping at it in an attempt to tear it off her face.

Noha Rushdi

When Noha Rushdi Saleh first went to the police to press charges against a man who had repeatedly groped her on the street, she was turned away. The police told her that if she wanted to file charges against the man she would have to bring him to the station herself. Saleh, 27, refused to give in, returning to the scene and sitting on the hood of the perpetrator’s vehicle until he was taken to a local police station and charged with assaulting the young woman.

The decision to press charges paid off, as a Cairo court sentenced Sherif Goma’a to three years in prison and a fine of 5,001 Egyptian pounds ($895).

Saleh, a filmmaker also known as Noha Al Ustazi, was walking down a Heliopolis – a northern Cairo suburb – street when Goma’a drove up next to her and continuously groped her, including grabbing her breasts.

Many activists across the country view the court’s ruling as something that could be a watershed in the struggle to combat sexual harassment.

Government taking notice

Nehad Abu Komsan, head of the Cairo-based Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, said the publicity surrounding these cases and the arrest of dozens of attackers in recent months are signs that the government is beginning to take more notice of what has become a notorious problem.

“I am optimistic the new year will be better for women, especially with a new law expected to be passed,” Komsan said.

She argues that while Rushdi’s case shows women can get justice in the country, many still remain silent over harassment.

“Women are moving forward, but it is slow,” Abu Komsan said, “because for many women they believe it is their fault that they are harassed or assaulted. So hopefully with more cases like Rushdi’s, women will be confident to go public.”

Two reports came out in 2008 on harassment and violence against women. The first, released by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights in July, found that 98 percent of foreign women and 60 percent of Egyptian women are harassed on a daily basis. The study was conducted on a sample of over 2,000 women in four governorates in the country, including Cairo and Giza.

A government report in November 2008 found 47 percent of married women between 15 and 49 are subjected at least once to physical violence. Among married women, 33 percent are physically abused and 7 percent are sexually abused before marriage. The report found 18 percent of Egyptian women subjected to psychological violence in the form of name calling and demeaning and intimidating behaviors by a man.

A new law

For almost two years now, Egyptian lawmakers have been discussing a new law to combat sexual harassment in the country, but it continues to stall.

Youssri Mohamed Bayoumi, a member of parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood party, doubts whether the new law will be adequately enforced.

“We have seen a new traffic law implemented, but nothing has really changed, so why do we believe that a new harassment law will get the job done?” he said at a roundtable discussion in October.

The traffic law was an attempt by the government to help reduce the number of traffic accidents on Egypt’s motorways that kill around 6,000 people annually. However, despite the law, which included seat belt requirements, speed limits and harsher penalties for violators, police have done little, if anything, to crack down, Bayoumi argued.

While Rushdi’s legal victory last fall has raised the hopes of many women’s rights activists here, it has also divided some former allies.
Less than one week after the conviction, Nagla Imam, a lawyer who initially supported Rushdi, charged that the Israeli citizen was attempting to tarnish Egypt’s image and was using the case for her own personal gains.

Imam and another lawyer, Nabih Al Wahash, filed a lawsuit with the general prosecutor in Cairo against Rushdi, calling for her arrest for “harming national security and lying about the charges.” The prosecutor refused the charges.

In a brief phone interview Rushdi said she had no intention of becoming a hero for Egyptian women. “I simply wanted to have justice against a man who assaulted me, so I don’t understand all the controversy,” she said.

Second Conviction

After Rushdi’s victory, a Cairo court sentenced another man to one year in prison in a separate incident involving a mob attack against female bystanders on the busy Gameat Al Dowal street in the Mohandiseen area.

Komsan was overjoyed. “The police did something. This is definitely a welcome change from the past when police just sit by and let men attack women.”

In the fall of 2008, Egyptian first lady Suzanne Mubarak–who has long allied herself with women’s rights activists–went on TV to downplay the idea of excessive street harassment in Egypt.

“Egyptian men always respect Egyptian women,” the first lady said in a TV interview with pan-Arabic news network Al Arabiya after the presenter showed her a number of recent assault claims made by women, including Rushdi. “This gives the impression that the streets in Egypt are not safe. That is not true . . . the media have exaggerated,” Mubarak continued. “Maybe one, two or even 10 incidents occurred. Egypt is home to 80 million people. We can’t talk of a phenomenon. Maybe a few scatterbrained youths are behind this crime.”

The first lady suggested that some of the negative media could have been motivated by Islamist militant factions. “And maybe some people wanted to make it seem as though the streets of Egypt are not safe so girls and women stay at home. This could be their agenda,” she said in a reference to Islamist militants.

Her claim that militants are hijacking harassment for political reasons has been discounted by leading activists, including Abu Komsan and Abdel Hadi.

“Her claims really show that some people do not want to really talk about this issue,” Abu Komsan said.

“What people say about Islamic militants taking this issue is ridiculous because they have been against us for a long time. We must educate everyone on this real issue that is affecting so many women here.”

BM

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