Between 25 November 2016, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (VaW), and 10 December, International Human Rights Day, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence are an opportunity to encourage action to end violence against women and girls around the world. In addition to the campaign #STOPViolenceAgainstWomen, EuroMed Rights will be publishing during those 16 Days a set of factsheets on VaW.
Today, we focus on violence against women in Egypt.
According to a study conducted by UN Women, published in April 2013, 99.3% of Egyptian women explained they had been sexually harassed, 91% of them admitting they did not feel safe on the streets. In 2008, another study by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights pointed out that 86% of the men interviewed admitted they had already sexually harassed women.
In Egypt, the Criminal Code only partially criminalizes rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment. The legal provisions, which have been hardly implemented, are not preventing women from the wave of sexual assault and rape following the 2011 revolution.
In addition, domestic violence against women is widely tolerated and the Government did not make any efforts to circumscribe this problem. On the contrary, several articles of the Criminal Code can be used to minimise the seriousness of this type of violence, or even to justify such acts.
It seems that the culture of impunity prevails in Egypt, especially as most cases of aggression and rape are not recorded, nor reported…
Learn more in our factsheet on violence against women in Egypt.