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Approaching Sexual Harassment from Religious Point of View

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As a follow up to my July 4 post, Time.com just published a good article about how the Egyptian government is tackling sexual harassment (including street harassment) through religion by distributing new books on sexual harassment to 50,000 imams at mosques across Egypt.

“The solutions proposed in the booklet — which include a greater adherence to religious and family values to better law enforcement — don’t necessarily match the advice preached by women’s groups, who focus primarily on drafting formal legislation on the matter and promoting female empowerment. Nevertheless, the ministry’s decision to address the issue at all, and on such a scale, may indicate a marked shift from the government’s stance just last year: that sexual harassment is the problem of just a few individuals. ‘It’s a big change,’ says Rasha Hassan, the main researcher at the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR). ‘Of course the government still needs to do a lot. But nowadays we can see some change in the ministries.'” …

“There are calls for the government to draft a law specifically aimed at curbing sexual harassment, but even that may not be enough. ‘I think that any law against sexual harassment in the streets or in the workplace is a good step forward,’ says Nadya Khalife, a Middle East expert in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch. ‘However [it] still requires the government to effectively enforce the law by creating mechanisms to ensure that women do report sexual harassment incidents, and that these incidents are dealt with appropriately.’

Indeed, change may be slow to come, but in Egypt some activists are encouraged by the small signs of progress. ‘We can’t change the culture or the people in one day,’ says ECWR’s Hassan. ‘But we are trying to do a lot of things … We try to make changes with the government first, and then the people.’

It was just a year ago this month that the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights published it’s groundbreaking report about the extent that men harass women in Egypt and so to have the government trying to take the issue seriously now seems like great progress in that amount of time!

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Book on Sexual Harassment Distributed at Egyptian Mosques

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In an effort to raise awareness about the widespread problem of sexual harassment (including in public places – street harassment) in Egypt, Egypt’s Ministry of Endowments has published a book on the topic that will be distributed at local mosques around the country, targeted at Imams. Menassat.com reports:

The book, titled ‘Sexual Harassment: Causes and Solutions,’ is co-written by Minister of Endowments Hamdi Zaqzouq and Salem Abdel Geleil, deputy minister of religious endowments….The book is to be distributed in mosques nationwide starting this week and reportedly discusses the definition of sexual harassment, motives behind it, and the occurrence of it in Egyptian society. But it apparently also brings up how some girls might be ‘asking for harassment’ by wearing revealing clothes or by their behavior, according to Daily News Egypt.”

Let’s hope the last sentence  isn’t true…

I hope the books will help, but I also wonder if there will be anyone holding the Imams accountable for reading the book and paying attention to what it says and helping to end the problem in their communities?

Back in February I reported that members of Egypt’s parliament were expected to propose a law strengthening the penalties against sexual offenders (including street harassers) by increasing jail time and fines and put more pressure on police to stop incidents and take the concerns of the targets of such harassment more seriously. Menassat.com reports that women’s rights groups are still “lobbying before the Egyptian government to introduce a legislation that makes sexual harassment punishable under the law.” I hope they succeed!

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