Egyptian harassment

(October 18, 2013)

A new police force in Egypt is patrolling the streets, entirely made up of women officers.

This police officer explains that women will feel more comfortable reporting harassment to a female police than to a male police. Apparently, harassment and groping of women is epidemic on Egyptian streets. This all makes great sense, because you know how we Arabs are always lecturing the west about how trashy your morals are, but somehow, our men can't seem to keep their hands to themselves.

Here is a guy being arrested. Now he wants to cover his face up.

These Egyptian men want to fight harassment, so they are part of an organization called Basma that records incidents. I think the report was showing how these volunteers are keeping watch in a square in Cairo where those female police officers were not present, and that although the female officers are out and about, there's still too few of them.

 

Finally, they interviewed some women to describe how they felt about harassment at the hands of some of their Arab brothers. They used words like "disrespect" and one of them I think said that each year on Eid (the Muslim holiday) she and her friends are always hoping they will be able to go out and enjoy the city, and yet each time they try, they face all sorts of scandalous behaviors instead.