Stop Street Harassment

Making Public Spaces Safe and Welcoming

Send Your Art for Display in Egypt

By

Via HarassMap in Egypt:

“As part of it’s “Emsek Motaharesh” campaign Harassmap is happy to announce an Open call for artworks in any medium treating the issue of Sexual harassment, artwork is expected to reflect the realities of women negotiating public and private space, sexual harassment as it occurs from street to state assaults, how women go about their everyday life in Egypt dreaming of safety.

Selected artworks will be displayed in an exhibition in Townhouse Gallery on July 15th 2012 as part of an anti-harassment event “Ya 3asal” in association with Mashroo3 el Mareekh, Bussy, and Graffiti 7arimi.

Deadline for Artworks is June 20th, Please send us high resolution versions of your work, and let us know how you want it to be
displayed on Ya3assal@gmail.com

Note: Graffiti 7arimi are looking for new graffiti artists to join i their project for the event, if you are interested please send along your application.

Show us how creative you are!

 

دعوة مفتوحة للفنانين

كجزء من حملة “امسك متحرش” التي تعمل على مناهضة التحرش الجنسي وتغيير التقبل المجتمعي للمشكلة، نود دعوة الفنانين والرسامين والمصميين المصريين أن يقدموا أعمال فنية تناقش مشكلة التحرش الجنسي في المجتمع المصري.
الأعمال المقدمة يجب أن تعكس واقع المرأة المصرية وكيف تتعامل مع إعتداء الشارع تارة والدولة تارة على حرية ممارسة حياتها في المجال العام، كما يجب أن تعكس الأعمال ما تطمح إليه المرأة المصرية يوما ما من أمان في الشارع.
الأعمال الفنية المختارة سوف تعرض في معرض يقام في معرض تاون هاوس، يوم 15 يوليو ٢٠١٢ كجزء من عمل حدث مشترك بعنوان “يا عسل” بالتعاون مع مشروح المريخ، بصي، وجرافيتي جريمي.

آخر ميعاد لتقديم الأعمال الفنية سيكون يوم
20 يونيو 2012

الرجاء ارسال صور high resolution من عملك الفني واشرح لنا كيف تريد عرضه على Ya3assal@gmail.com

جرافيتي حريمي يبحثون عن فنانين جرافيتي للمشاركة معهم في التصميمات المتعلقة بالمعرض، إذا أردت المشاركة ارسل لنا على نفس الإيميل Ya3assal@gmail.com

في إنتظار إبداعاتكن/م”

Share

Renewed Efforts to Pass Egyptian Anti-Sexual Harassment Law

By

Before the Egyptian Revolution in early 2011, a law against sexual harassment – including the sexual harassment that happens in the streets – was making its way through the Egyptian Parliament. Since the Revolution, not much has happened, though activists have continued to bring attention to the widespread problem of sexual harassment and street harassment and continue to advocate for a law.

In exciting news, this week, Egypt’s liberal Free Egyptians Party (FEP) declared its support for an anti-sexual harassment law.

Via Al Arabiya News:

“According to the report, the party condemned in a statement the ‘shameful stance of the female parliament members of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), who stand against a woman’s right to defend herself and refuse to condemn the man who assaulted the woman and only blame the society and the woman, who is the victim.’

Two-thirds of the Egyptian women experience sexual harassment on a daily basis, according to a 2008 statistics published by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights.

FEP member Mina Mounir was quoted as saying that the party supports women in their fight against sexual harassment ‘which became widespread in Egyptian society and must be combated, through community outreach, and encouraging citizens to be positive and not allow harassment of girls in the street, or public transportation.’

On Saturday, the FEP took part in a protest organized by women’s rights organizations in central Cairo against the sexual harassment phenomenon.”

Good! And tomorrow evening, hundreds of people will gather together to speak out against sexual harassment in Cairo. Via their Facebook event page:

“We are a group of Egyptian initiatives and activists supporting Egyptian Women’s full right to access public spaces such as streets, transport freely and safely.  It’s evident now that sexual harassment has become a painful daily reality, threatening our lives. Through our campaign “Nefsy” or “I aspire” we hope to reflect our aspirations; our campaign is inspired from our daily personal experiences.

The first activity of this campaign will be conducting “Salasel” which is simply gathering and standing next to each other each one with a message this message carries an aspiration to the streets of Cairo. we have chosen Wednesday May 16th to be our first (yet not the last) action come and invite your friends- men and women are welcome.”

If you’re in Cairo, I hope you can join them. Everyone deserves a life that is free from sexual harassment and sexual violence.

Share

From Cairo to DC: A Discussion on Street Harassment

By

On March 19, 2012, in  Washington, DC, for an International Anti-Street Harassment Week event, five activists (including myself) talked about issues of street harassment abroad and in Washington, DC. Countries we covered included Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, and the United Kingdom. The YWCA-National Capital Area hosted the talk.

L to R: Layla Moughari, Sawsan Gad, Twanisha Mitchell, Holly Kearl, Dienna Howard

I had enough space on my camera to video tape three of the talks. I hope you have time to watch them and learn about how harassment in Iran is similar or different to harassment in the USA; what activists with HarassMap are doing to combat street harassment in Egypt; and what same-race harassment looks like in the USA.
Share

I’m an Egyptian Girl

By

Two new films about street harassment in one day! The first one was from Pakistan, here is one from Egypt:

From the filmmaker: “A short movie that we worked on against sexual harassment and verbal abuse. We just wanted to reach out to all the women and young girls who ever got harassed and hopefully this short movie makes a difference. We only hope for a better environment and safer surroundings.”

Readers in Egypt: share your street harassment stories at HarassMap.

Share