Here are some jaw-dropping statistics from the most populous country in the Middle East:
-98 percent of foreign women said they had experienced harassment in Egypt
-83 percent of Egyptian women reported having been sexually harassed. Nearly half of women said the abuse occurred daily.
-62 percent of Egyptian men reported perpetrating harassment
-Only 2.4 percent of Egyptian women reported it to the police, with most saying they did not believe anyone would help. Most Egyptian women believed the victim should "remain silent."
These figures were culled from
this Reuters story:
Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to having sexually harassed women in the most populous Arab country, and a majority say women themselves are to blame for their maltreatment, a survey showed on Thursday.
The forms of harassment reported by Egyptian men, whose country attracts millions of foreign tourists each year, include touching or ogling women, shouting sexually explicit remarks, and exposing their genitals to women. "Sexual harassment has become an overwhelming and very real problem experienced by all women in Egyptian society, often on a daily basis," said the report by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights.
Egyptian women and female visitors frequently complain of persistent sexual harassment on Egyptian streets, despite the socially conservative nature of this traditional Muslim society.
Why is this?
While Egypt does not have sharia law officially enacted, government officials maintain that
95% of laws are consistent with or derived from sharia. Therefore, women and non-Muslims cannot testify in Egyptian courts with the same weight as a Muslim man. So in a "he-said, she-said" case, "she" always loses. Open season on women ensues (and foreigners in particular). See here for an Egyptian blogger's gruesome report of
Rape on the Streets.
