The new report “‘It’s Dangerous to be the First’: Security Barriers to Women’s Public Participation in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen” includes a portion about street harassment. Here is an excerpt:

“In all three countries, women perceived harassment to be on the rise, becoming both more frequent and more serious….

In the face of growing insecurity – as power continues to be renegotiated throughout the Middle East and North Africa – women activists in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen have established a wide variety of grassroots initiatives to protect themselves and others against threats. Such initiatives have been coupled with powerful outreach and media campaigns at the local, national, and regional level to raise awareness of women’s security concerns.

In Egypt and Yemen a number of initiatives were formed to document accounts of sexual assaults and violence targeting women. Egyptian initiatives such as ‘Harassmap’ and ‘Shoft Taharosh’ (‘I Witnessed Harassment’) are based on the idea that documenting harassment through online and mobile technologies can help raise awareness. Using detailed maps of local incidents of harassment, volunteers talk to people on the streets about sexual harassment, challenge stereotypes and myths, and try to convince communities and the public generally to speak up and act against sexual harassment.

In Yemen several similar initiatives have developed, some of them explicitly modelled on Egyptian approaches, others reacting independently to similar problems. Such initiatives have combined with ‘citizen journalist’ footage of individual instances of harassment and assault. Through film-making and journalistic initiatives they make harassment, sexual violence, and other forms of violence against both men and women visible in novel ways. Mosireen, a video collective, for instance, are documenting violence against male and female protestors on video, acting as an archive and repository for such footage and producing short documentaries.

The combination of visual representations and awareness-raising around the prevalence of harassment with video footage of particularly shocking instances has begun to break down the prevailing attitudes of denial and excuses of harassment as harmless or natural and has been central to raising the profile of this issue and encouraging public debates about it.”

I have so much admiration for the women and men in these countries who are working hard to make sure all women and girls are safe in public places, including safe as they participate in political rallies and events. It takes a lot of bravery.