Taboo and Rape in Egypt

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

By Mona Eltahawy
The Jerusalem Report.
Oct. 28, 2010

A WOMAN, COVERED head-to-toe in a black veil, appeared on Egyptian television this summer to drop a bombshell: two policemen, she said, had raped her.

It’s unclear if she normally wears the niqab, the face veil, or if it served to protect her anonymity. But there was no doubt that her allegation served as a sledgehammer to strike two of Egypt’s sorest spots of late: sexual assault and police brutality.

The latter has been the subject of outcry and unprecedented protest since Khaled Said, a young businessman, died on June 6 from what his family and witnesses say was a police beating. Two plainclothes police officers went on trial on July 27, charged with illegal arrest and excessive force.

Standing up to the police in a country that’s been under emergency law for 29 years comes with considerable risk. Said’s family says he was targeted after posting an online video allegedly showing police sharing the profit of a drug bust.

Reporting rape anywhere is difficult but in Egypt’s conservative culture, women keep quiet rather than risk arousing blame or humiliation, and at times rape again at a police station. In some cases, they risk being killed by a relative to rid the family of shame.

“I am sacrificing my reputation by telling the story… to protect every girl, every woman who may trust a police van. I tell them now, if you see a police van, you must be very careful,” she said. “I want the officials to know what policemen do to the people. Even now, I still can’t believe or comprehend that these were policemen.”

Her lawyer told the TV station a police investigation had recognized that the rape took place but didn’t identify the attackers as policemen. It’s unclear how her case has proceeded. Assailants in rape cases face sentences ranging from three years to life imprisonment. Marital rape is not illegal in Egypt.

Some 20,000 rapes are reported in Egypt each year, according to a state-run research center. But that figure is said to represent just 10 percent of the total number of victims. When I was a reporter in Cairo, psychiatrists were my source for information on sexual assaults. They are the ones rape survivors went to for help to cope.

Sexual assaults have been surfacing for a while, often with a background of police ineptitude or compliance. In 2005, hundreds of Egyptians staged an angry protest against the sexual harassment and assault of female activists and reporters by suspected government supporters. The women said police and security forces stood by, some shouting orders during the assaults.

Sexual assaults in downtown Cairo during a religious festival in 2006 forced Egypt to confront the consequences of its unchecked sexual harassment. Women said police did nothing as men tore off their clothes and headscarves, groping them and in some cases trying to rape them during the festival. The Interior Ministry denied the assaults even took place.

Bloggers at the scene posted photographs and videos of the assaults, pushing them onto the headlines and forcing a long-overdue reckoning. A number of draft laws dealing with sexual harassment are under consideration by Parliament but there is still nothing on Egypt’s statute books that specifically prohibits street harassment.

Later this year, a volunteer-run private venture, HarassMap, will be launched that will allow women to report street sexual harassment by sending an SMS to a centralized computer. They will receive a reply offering support and practical advice, and the reports will be used to build up a detailed and publicly available map of harassment hot spots that activists hope will shame authorities into taking greater action.

Attitudes toward rape across the Arab world generally are abysmal. The stigma – and often the law – is much harsher on the woman than on the rapist.

Two cases notorious for their miscarriage of justice clearly illustrate why most women who are raped keep quiet. In 2007, a Saudi woman who reported being gang-raped was sentenced to 200 lashes and imprisonment for being alone with a man. After an international outcry, the Saudi king pardoned her.

In June, a court in Abu Dhabi sentenced an 18-year-old Emirati woman to a year in prison for illicit sex after she reported that six men had gang-raped her. The court said that by agreeing to go for a drive with a male friend, a 19-year-old military police officer, she had consented to having sex with him.

The woman in niqab on Egyptian television understood the magnitude of what she was doing. Her tearful TV segment, which has gone viral on YouTube, stands to become as iconic as the harrowing footage in 2006 of policemen sodomizing bus driver Emad Kabir with a stick. Two bloggers posted that footage and two of the policemen were sentenced to three years in jail. Kabir’s testimony helped break the taboo around male rape in police custody.

The woman in niqab is helping break a taboo too, but neither she nor Egypt is ready for her to do so as publicly as Kabir, whose name we know and whose face was clearly visible as he screamed in pain in the footage of his rape.

All we know of the woman in niqab is that she is a grandmother.

She told that to the police she accuses of raping her as she pleaded with them to stop.

Posted by Mona Eltahawy at 4:52 pm | Permalink 9 Comments »
Categories: Blogs, Egypt, Media, Mideast, Saudi Arabia, Women, human rights
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__________________________

Egypt's harassed women need their own revolution

An Egyptian girl flashes her nails painted with the colors of her national flag in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• If you are a woman living in Cairo, chances are you have been sexually harassed
  
• In 1994, shortly after I arrived in the city, a man walked up to me and casually grabbed my breast
  
• Behavior of men includes groping, stalking, lascivious looks and indecent exposure
  
• The only real protection women can have is when the attitudes of men change

Editor's note: CNN producer and camerawoman Mary Rogers has lived and worked in Egypt since 1994. She joined CNN in 1981 and has covered conflicts in Somalia, Sierra Leone, the Congo, Iraq, Chechnya, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Recently she filmed the uprising in Tunisia.

Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Several months before the revolution, I wrote a piece for CNN.com on the sexual harassment of women in Cairo.

News of the chilling attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan, as well as other sexual assaults against women during Egypt's uprising, show that attacks against women have not gone away.

I speak from experience. While most of my days covering Tahrir Square during the last few weeks were free from harassment, there was one day when I was groped. Another colleague almost had her pants ripped off by a gang of thugs.

If you are a woman living in Cairo, chances are you have been sexually harassed. It happens on the streets, on crowded buses, in the workplace, in schools, and even in a doctor's office.

According to a 2008 survey of 1,010 women conducted by the Egyptian Center for Women's rights, 98 percent of foreign women and 83 percent of Egyptian women have been sexually harassed.

It happens on the streets, on crowded buses, in the workplace, in schools, and even in a doctor's office. 
--Mary Rogers

I was walking home from dinner recently when a carload of young men raced by me and screamed out "Sharmouta" (whore in Arabic.)

Before I could respond, they were gone, but I noticed policemen nearby bursting with laughter. I am old enough to be those boys' mother, I thought.

This incident was minor compared to what happened in 1994, shortly after I moved here. It was winter, and I was walking home from the office, dressed in a big, baggy sweater, and jacket. A man walked up to me, reached out, and casually grabbed my breast.

In a flash, I understood what the expression to "see red" meant. I grabbed him by the collar and punched him hard in the face. I held on to him, and let out a stream of expletives. His face grew pale, and he started to shake. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he whispered.

But the satisfaction of striking back quickly dissipated. By the time I walked away, I was feeling dirty and humiliated. After a couple of years enduring this kind harassment, I pretty much stopped walking to and from work.

Of course, harassment comes in many forms. It can be nasty words, groping, being followed or stalked, lewd, lascivious looks, and indecent exposure.

At times it can be dangerous. This is what a friend told me happened to her: "I remember I was walking on the street, when a car came hurtling towards me. Aiming for me! At the last minute he swerved, then stopped, and finally laughed at me. I learned later that it was a form of flirting."

Why is sexual harassment in Egypt so rampant? There could be any number of reasons, but many point to disregard for human rights.

Before the uprising, Nehad Abu el Komsan, the Director for the Center for Women's Rights, told me that Egypt was more interested in political than public security. She said that often meant that officials focused more on preventing political unrest than addressing social ills.

Some also blame the spread of more conservative interpretations of Islam from the Gulf over the past 30 years. They say such interpretations demand more restrictive roles for women and condemn women who step outside of those prescribed roles.

Perhaps it will be people power, the same people power that brought down a regime, that will successfully combat sexual harassment.
--Mary Rogers

Social media after Egypt's revolution

Search for the missing in Egypt

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"Four million Egyptians went to the Gulf," el Komsan said. "They returned with oil money, and oil culture, which is not very open, related to the status of women. All of this changed the original culture of the Egyptian," she adds, "which included high respect for women."

Sara, a young Egyptian activist, told me that the concept of respect for some reason doesn't exist any more. "I think Egypt has lived a very long time in denial. Something happened in Egyptian society in the last 30 or 40 years. It feels like the whole social diagram has collapsed."

What is being done to raise awareness and combat such behavior? A law regarding sexual harassment will have to wait. The country has greater concerns now -- forming a new government; writing a new constitution; getting Egypt's economy going again and dealing massive unemployment, among other things.

The military is in charge now, and who knows when Egypt will get a new president, or parliament.

In the past, women who have been sexually harassed here have been too afraid or ashamed to speak up. That is changing slowly. In 2008, in a landmark court case, a man was sentenced to three years of hard labor for grabbing the breast of Noha Rushdi Saleh, a brave woman determined to seek justice.

The trial was covered extensively in the Egyptian press, and brought the problem of sexual harassment out in the open.

A group of young idealists are taking a personal initiative in trying to combat sexual harassment.

They are handing out pamphlets now saying: "Don't take bribes, don't drive the wrong way on a one way street, and don't sexually harass women." Perhaps it will be people power, the same people power that brought down a regime, that will successfully combat sexual harassment.

But the only real protection women can have is when the attitudes of men change.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mary Rogers.