Campaign "Eid without harassment," is a campaign founded since two years ago, youth groups to address the phenomenon of sexual harassment in the Egyptian street, which statistics show it to increase terrifying, statistics show that there is a case of harassment every 27 minutes, according to statistics from the campaign. Launched its campaign last year in the Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha where the work groups and committees in metro to counter this negative phenomenon which is due to many reasons, including:
- The absence of ethical awareness and moral collapse of the system within the community.
- The absence of religious consciousness due to the lack of efficiency of the preachers or preoccupation with politics in the recent period.
- The absence of security of the system due to the political circumstances experienced by the country.
- There is no legal system in the article stipulates the sexual harassment and rape but there are death and scratched modesty only.
- Lack of awareness among women how to deal with this phenomenon and how to defend themselves when exposed to harassment and arrest the harasser and take legal action against him.
- Lack of community awareness of the seriousness of this phenomenon and the awareness that spread is the moral collapse of the system.
Working "Eid without harassment" Working in cooperation between the campaign of "Anti harassment" and "Imprint movement ", Working this year in Talaat Harb Square downtown, where it one of the most significant fields spread of this phenomenon.
Their working depend on two main ways:
- Volunteer and qualified groups to deal with cases of harassment and the owners of the perpetrators to the police and action against them,These groups constitute a constant patrols roamed the field constantly, and each patrol consisting of commander and between 5-8 volunteers trained on how to deal with the harasser, arrested and handed over to the nearest point of security.
-The second way: a composition of awareness groups to talk with passers-by and make them aware of the seriousness of this phenomenon and how to address them and to report any case of harassment on the campaign figures.
I asked one of the officials of the campaign for the cooperation of the police and their response to situations that are arrested, he said that, "The police are accustomed to on protect the state and the system, not protect individuals and it will take a long time to change this policy, but compared to the previous are cooperating to some extent," he add " On the first day of The campaign for the first time present a security force of police to support us and this is something positive".
I spent the whole day campaign and talked to most of them and found they were from different community Level and different education and i found one thing common among all of them, "the insistence on the elimination of this phenomenon in any form."
I hope soon we can see Egypt without harassment.
Abdulrahman,
Cairo, 10 Aug. 2013