In the past few days, the hashtag "the first time I encountered sexual harassment was when" has been making the rounds in Egypt after Twitter account @M7rusa asked people to share their stories of sexual harassment.
The campaign was started in hopes that it would raise awareness among the public on how bad harassment, physical and sexual, actually is in the Arab world, especially in places like Egypt.
It seems as though numbers and statistics about >sexual harassment in Egypt aren't enough.
According to a 2013 report released by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, 99.3% of Egyptian women have experienced some form of sexual harassment.
96.5% of these women experienced physical sexual harassment whereas 95.5% said they experienced verbal abuse.
The majority of Egyptians blame women for inciting sexual harassment by claiming that their tight clothing means: "asking for it".
The stories under the hashtag are quite horrifying to say the least. It's about time the world acknowledges the frequency and rate at which women in the Arab world are harassed.
A crowded street did not stop this girl from getting harassed
She was only 8 years old ... and it happened in an elevator
When waiting to cross the road ...
"I was just 7 years old"
"I'm afraid to even talk about it"
"If I hadn't threatened him, he would have never stopped"
"The first time I got harassed I was 8 years old... My harasser was my cousin and he was 10 years older than me.
The harassment went on for three years. He would threaten me so I wouldn't talk about it with anyone. And I didn't ... because I was scared.
I didn’t know what sexual harassment meant and I had never heard of harassment in the first place. I didn’t know what it was nor why it happens, all I knew is that I was hurt. I was scared.
After 3 years, when I decided to tell my parents about it, they screamed at me and accused me of insolence because I kept silent for so long. That’s what made me weak and then they asked me to end the discussion.
They didn’t take any action against my cousin, but rather forced me to wear the hijab when I was 11 years old.
I then decided to confront him and threaten him that I would scream and let everyone at home and on the street hear what he was doing. And if I hadn't done that he would never have stopped."