Mass sexual assault is a widespread issue in Egypt and has been the subject of significant international attention since 2005, when Egyptian security forces and their agents were accused of using it as a weapon against female protesters during a political demonstration at Tahrir Square in Cairo on 25 May of that year. It has since become increasingly prevalent, and by 2012, it had become commonplace for crowds of young men to sexually assault or rape women during festivals and political protests throughout the country.Emily Dugan, "Revealed: Egypt is the worst Arab country for women", The Independent, 11 November 2013.
Testimonies on these mass sexual assaults revealed a general pattern in how they are conducted: a smaller group of men would encircle a woman, while a larger group of men would form an outer ring to physically deter anyone who attempted to intervene; the isolated woman would then be abused and groped while being stripped of her clothes and vaginally or anally penetrated with fingers or handheld objects. The attacks, which have been described as the "circle of hell" by activists, have been extensively documented by Egyptian women's rights organizations, Amnesty International, and the United Nations.
Commentators say the attacks reflect a misogynistic attitude among Egyptian society that penalizes women for leaving the house, seeks to terrorize them out of public life, and views sexual violence as a source of shame for the victim, not the attacker. Sexual assault has been used as a weapon against female protesters in 2005 and since July 2012, although the perpetrators are not exclusively politically motivated.Magda Adly, "Sexual Assault and Rape in Tahrir Square and its Vicinity: A Compendium of Sources 2011–2013", El-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture, with the Nazra for Feminist Studies, and the New Woman Foundation, February 2013.
Background
Sexual harassment was barely discussed in Egypt before 2006. The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights sought to draw attention to it, but the public's response was that it was an American idea wrongly applied to Egyptian society.
Mass sexual assault was first documented during the Egyptian constitutional referendum on 25 May 2005, on what became known as "Black Wednesday", when women demonstrators were sexually assaulted by a group of agents provocateurs, groups of men who had arrived on buses, as police watched and did nothing to intervene.Paul Amar, "Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out" , International Feminist Journal of Politics, 13(3), 2011, 13:3, pp. 299–328.
The issue attracted more discussion following the Eid al-Fitr holiday in 2006, when on 24 October a crowd of young men who had been denied entry to a cinema in Cairo engaged in a five-hour-long mass sexual assault of women in Talaat Harb Street.Sherifa Zuhur, "Women's Quest for Equality in Post-Revolutionary Egypt," in Claudia Derichs, Dana Fennert (eds.), Women's Movements and Countermovements, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, p. 36. Magdi Abdelhadi, "Cairo street crowds target women", BBC News, 1 November 2006. Mona el Naggar, Michael Slackman, "Silence and Fury in Cairo After Sexual Attacks on Women", The New York Times, 15 November 2006. Police were reported to have done nothing to stop it, although many bystanders tried to help the women.Rizzo, Helen; Price, Anne M.; Meyer, Katherine (2008). "Targeting Cultural Change in Repressive Environments: The Campaign against Sexual Harassment in Egypt" , The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights.
The attacks gained prominence outside Egypt in February 2011 when Lara Logan, a correspondent for the American network CBS, was sexually assaulted by hundreds of men in Tahrir Square, Cairo, while reporting on the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. By 2012, according to Al Akhbar, such attacks had become a "prominent feature" of religious festivals in Egypt.Kassab, Bisan; Mamdouh; Rana (20 September 2012). "The Widespread Plague of Sexual Harassment in Egypt", Al Akhbar.
Description Attacks
Amnesty International described a series of attacks that took place on January 25, 2013, against protesters in the vicinity of Tahrir Square. The victims of these attacks said they typically lasted from a few minutes to over an hour, and that the men were usually in their 20s and 30s. Victims were aged seven to 70.
Describing the Tahrir Square attacks, women said they were often separated from friends by the crowd, or out alone, and encircled by a large group of men who groped their breasts, genitals and buttocks. Attempts were made to pull or cut their clothes off, and their bodies were pulled in different directions as men moved them through the crowd. Women regularly report digital penetration of the vagina and anus. Attackers have used sticks, knives and blades, and in several cases sharp objects have been inserted into the victim's vagina.
One student protester described how a group of men formed a ring around her in Tahrir Square on 25 January 2013:
The last thing I heard was "don't worry," followed by screaming ... At first they tried to rip my bag out of my hands; I then felt hands all over my body, tearing down my trousers and long jacket; they were undoing its clips. ... They pulled my trousers and pants down, but couldn't get them all the way down because I was wearing boots that they couldn't manage to get off ... I felt hands touch me from all directions, and I was moved, almost carried, inside the circle as people continued saying: "don't worry." They were saying that while violating me ...
Perpetrators regularly claim to be helping the women when in fact they are attacking them, which increases the difficulty for rescuers and leaves the women not knowing whom to trust. Women testify to having heard attackers say: "Do not be afraid; I'm protecting you," or "you are like my sister, do not be afraid." People genuinely trying to help find themselves being beaten and sexually assaulted too.
Volunteer groups in Cairo, including OpAntiSH (Operation Anti Sexual Harassment), organize "extraction teams" who push into the circles wearing padded clothing, helmets and gloves, and get the women out. Other OpAntiSH teams carry spare clothes and medical supplies, operate a hotline so that the extraction teams know where to go, and offer counselling and legal and medical help. They were called to 19 incidents on 25 January 2013 alone, and were able to respond to 15 of them.Chick, Kristen (1 February 2013). "Egyptians work to reclaim a Tahrir tainted by sexual assault", Christian Science Monitor. Nelson, Soraya Sarhaddi (7 July 2013). "Sexual Assaults Reportedly Rampant During Egypt Protests", NPR.
Rescuers have described how assailants have set up makeshift tea stands in the crowd; in one case boiling water from a tea stand was thrown over rescuers who had formed a protective ring around a woman.Fernandez 2015, para. 20. During an attack in Cairo in 2013, the attackers allowed an ambulance to leave with the victim only when the driver told them she was dead.
Reasons
Mariz Tadros of the Institute of Development Studies notes that "social"—that is, non-politically motivated—sexual assault in Egypt is a result of diverse motives, including pleasure, a desire to dominate women, and a "perceived sense of sexual deprivation" because marriage may be financially prohibitive. Journalist Shereen El Feki, author of Sex and the Citadel (2013), writing about sexual harassment in general (taharrush jinsi), blamed unemployment, social media and a "breakdown of family surveillance" because of overworked parents.El Feki 2013, p. 124.
In one survey 60 percent of the highest educated women in Egypt blamed the victims (of general sexual harassment) and "provocative" clothing, as did 75 percent of the least educated women.El Feki, 2013, p. 126.
In a 2013 UN survey, 75.7% of women who had been sexually harassed said it occurred while they were wearing conservative clothing without makeup. When asked about causes, female respondents cited "foreign pornographic programs" (97.2%), "non-enforcement of the religious principles" (95.5%) and "non-compliance of girls with religious values with regard to appearance" (94.3%). Male respondents cited "wearing tight clothes" (96.3%) and that the women "do not conform to religious ethics with regard to their appearance" (97.5%).
Nehad Abu Komsan, head of the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, argues that sexual harassment is a symptom of the country's political and economic oppression, and that men are "lashing out at those next down the line in the patriarchy."El Feki, Shereen (2013). Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, Doubleday Canada. Hussein el Shafie of OpAntiSH has argued that the attacks are like a "tear-gas bomb" to get women off the streets – not sexual but stemming from a sense of entitlement.Auger, Bridgette (undated). "On location video: Assaulted in Tahrir Square" , GlobalPost; also at Chick, Kristen (1 February 2013). "Egyptians work to reclaim a Tahrir tainted by sexual assault", Christian Science Monitor. According to a 2013 paper by Nazra for Feminist Studies:
[A] general attitude of sexual entitlement prevails, that is, a belief that the bodies of women present in the context of demonstrations are safe territories for sexual attacks underlies nearly all testimonies. With testimonies that speak of hundreds of hands persistently raping women, with hundreds more watching the brutal attacks, some while even smiling, it becomes clear that we are faced with an overwhelming challenge, namely a state and a society that have internalized sexual violence against women as the law of the land.
Prevalence
According to a 2008 survey by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, 83% of Egyptian women said they had experienced sexual harassment, as did 98% of women from overseas while in Egypt. A 2013 study in Egypt by UN Women found that 99.3% of female respondents said they had been sexually harassed.
The first jail sentence in Egypt for sexual harassment came in 2008 after a man molested a woman in the street from his car.Zuhur 2014, p. 36; "Egyptian sexual harasser jailed", BBC News, 21 October 2008. Following this, two films – Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story (Yousry Nasrallah, 2009) and 678 (Muhammad Diyab, 2010) – brought the issue of sexual assault to cinemas.
The mass sexual assaults have been on the increase since the fall of Hosni Mubarak on 11 February 2011, the end of the 2011 revolution, particularly during protests in Tahrir Square and religious festivals.
According to Serena Hollmeyer Taylor and other researchers at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the revolution saw a drop in complaints of harassment. Citing HARASSmap, which offers an interactive mapping service to which harassment can be reported, they write that 82 reports of sexual harassment were received between 7 and 25 January 2011. This is in contrast with the eight received between 25 January, the day of the first protests, and 11 February, when Mubarak stepped down.Serena Hollmeyer Taylor, et al., "'When She Stands Among Men': Sexual Harassment of Women at Political Protests in Cairo, January 2011 – August 2013" , Al Nakhlah, 10 June 2014. Taylor et al. call this Egypt's "liminal moment", following the anthropologist Victor Turner's idea that, during political upheaval, people are liberated from their "cultural script". During those 18 days, a protester told them, men put aside their differences with women, and everyone was simply Egyptian.Taylor et al. 2014 , citing Victor W. Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975, p. 13.