For Muslims, the Eid-al-Fitr holiday ending the holy month of Ramadan should be a joyous one, but in Egypt, there always seems to be a spike in street harassment.
For two years, the group Shoft Taharosh (I Saw Harassment) has taken it upon themselves to monitor high trafficked areas to look out for harassment so they can prevent it or intervene. They said they intervened in 35 incidents during the three days of Eid, Monday to Wednesday, meaning they either prevented an incident or rescued a victim. They also distributed 4,000 leaflets about the legal penalties against street sexual offeses and numbers of hotlines.
The Egyptian government has been addressing this problem too.
The Interior Ministry, in charge of security in Egypt, set up an anti-harassment unit — “Department of Combat of Violence against Women”. The unit was deployed on busy streets and outside theaters during the three-day Eid. “These forces, supported by female police, will eliminate the phenomenon of harassment and violence against women,” Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim said. On Monday alone, they arrested six young men.
