Monday, November 05, 2012

How Egyptians are fighting harassment in the streets...

Like many Egyptian women, Nihal Saad Zaghloul is no stranger to street harassment. But it was one incident in particular that made the 26-year-old IT worker decide to do something about it. Along with some friends, she was attacked by a group of men in Cairo's Tahrir Square in June: "They started groping me and grabbing (my) hijab. I lost my friends, I was terrified – some (other) men hid me behind a small kiosk."

Traumatised and furious, Nihal blogged about the incident at length, but writing wasn't enough. The following week, she formed an anti-harassment group, inviting about 60 men and women, via Facebook, to gather on Mohamed Mahmoud street, near Tahrir Square, to protest peacefully against harassment. They were set upon by "about 50 men", who groped the women and beat up the men. But Nihal was undeterred, setting up a website to post her blogs detailing instances of harassment. "By July," she says, "the movement had begun."

Zaghaleel, which means "carrier pigeons" in Arabic, now comprises a growing number of women and men who form street patrols, effectively preventing assaults on women in public by talking to the assailants and drawing attention to their behaviour. Wearing hi-vis jackets, the male patrollers walk the platforms of the metro in a bid to protect female passengers travelling on the women-only carriages. They form a human chain around the women and have never resorted to violence. They don't need to, says Nihal, because "the more of us there are the more scared the harassers are to fight". Full story...

Related posts:
  1. 16-year-old Egyptian girl shot dead for resisting groping...
  2. Egypt's sexual harassment of women has become 'epidemic'
  3. Hundreds of men in Egypt attack women protesting sexual harassment...
  4. Aliaa Magda Elmahdy: Egyptian activist causes outrage with nude photos...
  5. Egyptian women protestors forced to take virginity tests by army officers...
  6. Egypt voices: Sexual harassment...

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