According to United Nations Population Fund, Egypt ranks second in the world in the terms of sexual harassment. In a study conducted by U.N. Women back in 2013, it was revealed that 99.3 percent of women in Egypt had experienced some form of sexual harassment and 82.6 percent of women never felt safe going out in public.
In an attempt to reduce and eventually eliminate sexual harassment, Egyptian authorities passed a new law on June 4, 2014. The law criminalized sexual harassment and any verbal, physical or behavioral sexual harassment can result in a prison sentence of 6 months to 5 years and up to 50,000 EGP in fines.
While the world celebrates the Egyptian government for attempting to decrease and eliminate sexual harassment in Egypt, the public has also created multiple projects and initiatives that are attempting to do the same thing.
Projects like the Pink Taxi, a taxi driven by women and transports women only, aim to protect women from verbal or physical sexual harassment and violence experienced on the street.
But what happens when the predators come into your own home and violate your privacy?
Harassers have now found an alternative, a "safer" way, to sexually harass and violate women. They are now using social media platforms and endless cellphone calls. Most recently, I have had the pleasure to deal with two men, who called and harassed me for two days straight.
More than 200 calls later, 238 to be exact, and with over 12 hours of endless sexual harassment over the phone through calls and vile texts on the first day, I decided that it would be time to fight back. You know, give them a taste of their medicine as they say.
Like any other woman that had to deal with sexual harassment, I was fuming. The frustration and sense of violation quickly disappeared and those feelings were replaced by anger and frustration. Therefore, I decided to go public with this very unfortunate experience. At the end of the day, countless other women are experiencing this sort of harassment as you read this article.
My sisters and I decided to release their numbers online and have every person we know call, threaten, or just troll these two men. Male friends gave out their numbers to their friends and it quickly became a trend within a variety of circles and people from different social background.
A little over an hour later, over 50 people were calling these two men.
By the end of the day, we were able to obtain the name and address of one of these men. Fearing what would happen next, that man apologized multiple times.
But, he started the harassment again 5 hours later and by 6 AM this morning, I had received more than 145 calls. My ordeal is not yet over. However, given my stubbornness and sheer sense of anger, I will continue to troll and pester these men with until they call it quits, deeming their cellphones useless and their sleep time interrupted.
For those of you who are wondering why I didn't file a police report, it's because a case like this wouldn't be deemed important to them. Even though I am able to provide sufficient evidence to legally press charges, cases like sexual harassment on the Internet and on the phone are not seen as "important" or "critical."
It has become clear that Egyptian women are the ones that are able to put an end to this epidemic. Be vocal, release numbers and fight back because if authorities are not able to help you out, then you need to claim your rights as a human being and and as woman.