rebel with a cause Archives | Stop Street Harassment

Stop Street Harassment ally Ahmed Awadalla has an important post at his blog Rebel with a Cause about the street harassment of a famous Egyptian actress during the May 27 protest in Tahrir Square.

“Yesterday was an important day for the revolution. Protesters took Tahrir square again to assert revolution’s demands. Islamists groups decided not to participate yesterday so it was a test for liberal and secular groups to organize in the streets. It was considered a success given the thousands that showed up, but it was marred by a horrible incident of sexual harassment of the famous diva Sherihan.

Sherihan was an actress and performer loved by Egyptians particularly during the 80s and 90s. She suffered a severe car accident in mid-90s and it was rumored that it was a chapter of love and power saga that involved Alaa the elder son of Mubarak. She magically recovered and came back to the stage, only to suffer cancer a few years later and move away from the artistic scene. Sherihan was one of the few artists who participated in the revolution unlike many artists who withdrew from making a political stance.

My mother told me that this sad video was screened on TV that shows the horrible incident. The setting around her doesn’t look like Tahrir, some reported that this happened as she was leaving Tahrir yesterday.

What really angers me is the lack of attention such incident got and some of the horrible comments of victim-blame that I always hear when sexual harassment is brought up. Some wonder why she went out of her home! It makes me wonder how deep the denialism about gender inequality is in our country. Even activists refrain from mentioning the incident. Is it because they didn’t know? Or is it an attempt to maintain the silver-lining of the revolution? Is not really important to talk about now? Or is it deep-hidden patriarchy?

But the answer won’t be simple and many factors come at play here. What if this happened to one of the famous activists of the revolution? Does the revolution have an authoritarian system that controls who is important and who’s not? What if the victim of mass harassment was an unknown person? Would it get reported at all?

When Lara Logan was sexually assaulted in Tahrir right after Mubarak was toppled, Western media was all over covering her story. Western coverage was very uneven as well with some victim blaming and Islam bashing too. But Egyptian media failed to report on it. Is it because we deny sexual harassment? Is it because she’s a foreigner? Or we were simply overjoyed by Mubarak’s departure?

In gender battles, other factors interfere such as race, age, class, and power. I think we really need to think about these questions and recognize our prejudices. This is how we push the revolution forward.”

This male ally post is cross-posted from Rebel with a Cause Bog.

News came out yesterday about a draft law that has been proposed by the government issuing harsher punishments for those who commit sexual harassment and rape crimes, up to the point of death sentence.

The new law tackles various points: adding telephone and the internet to different media through which harassment can occur; and giving more conditions when rape convicts get harsher punishments such as reconsidering victim’s age and cases where the victim has been raped by more than one convicts.

This is a reminder of a similar law which just passed a few days ago for combating thuggery. The news of that law was alarming to me as well as many other human rights activists. The move towards stricter law for thuggery was met with a lot of criticism. Just before this particular law was passed, the military forces cracked down on Tahrir protesters, many were detained and tortured. These protesters were claimed to be thugs which puts us at a dilemma of how to determine who’s a thug and who’s a protester, especially because we are at a time where military courts (where people do not enjoy their full rights of fair trial) have been handling these cases.

Back to sexual harassment, it is quite obvious there’s a problem with the way we’re dealing with this issue. The phenomenon which began surfacing rather recently in Egypt is rampant. But is issuing stricter punishments the solution for this multifaceted problem? Here’s why I don’t think so:

I find the process highly questionable. The ministerial council pushes for more punishments for sexual harassment and the supreme military council is happy to enforce these, because this is the language the military best understands. In normal circumstances the ministerial council can propose draft laws and submit them to the parliament to discuss them further. Either way there need to be more public debate about it.

Drafting laws without counseling civil society bodies or human rights experts is pretty concerning. These laws have to be compatible with human rights law, and there need to be clear definition and good consensus on what sexual assault entails.

I am more concerned with how to enforce this law, rather than the punishments themselves. There are big question marks on how to get these cases reported? We have a culture of silence about these crimes. It’s hard for people to report them because a huge stigma can be placed upon them. Most women who face sexual harassment or even rape never report it to the police or even to their families because their lives can be devastated.

We have this culture of intimidating criminals by increasing punishments. I don’t really believe it works. To be able to overcome a societal problem, we need to handle its underlying causes. All those handling those crimes need to be sensitized about it and fully aware of its implications. By engaging different people in the process of ending the phenomenon of sexual harassment, real achievement can happen on that front.

– Ahmed Awadalla, Cairo, Egypt

This post is part of the weekly blog series by male allies. We need men involved in the work to end the social acceptability of street harassment and to stop the practice, period. If you’d like to contribute to this weekly series, please contact me.

Street harassment at Tahrir Square during May 27 protest

Do We Know How to Handle Sexual Harassment?