ECWR held a press conference on 24 March, 2007
to announce the results of the first phase of our campaign against sexual
harassment, entitled "Making Our Streets Safer for Everyone." The
120 participants were NGO leaders, representatives of political parties,
political and legal experts, activists, 20 students from Egyptian
universities, and journalists (including BBC, Channel 1, and others). The
conference presented an analysis of over 2500 reports of sexual harassment
received by ECWR, and a report on sexual harassment laws in six countries
(France, Turkey, UAE, India, UK, Qatar) and the relevant articles of the
Egyptian Penal Code. Participants were divided into three workshops to
discuss the 3 axes of the campaign: legal and advocacy, media and public
outreach, and NGOs.
The recommendations were:
Legal: Does Egypt need new legislation to
stop sexual harassment or to implement existing articles of the penal
code?
- New and clear legislation is needed that
would immediately punish harassers, include protection of the disabled
and set a more severe punishment for harassers of children
- Clearly define sexual harassment, in all its
forms
- Establish offices for receiving complaints
about sexual harassment, not only in police stations but in other
centers as well
- A severe punishment is necessary because as
the punishment increases, it becomes more difficult to evade
- A high fine must be set
- A severe punishment must be set for
harassers in the workplace
- Decrease the requirements for providing
evidence of the harassment
- Improve how the police deal with this issue
by assigning social workers to police stations
- Speed the judicial process, issue clear
sentences and implement them swiftly
- The traffic law includes articles making
permission to drive conditional on driver's record of previous
accidents; this should be applied to other crimes as well, especially
the kidnapping of women and subjecting them to harassment
Media and NGOs: How to influence public
opinion, especially in local communities?
-
Listening sessions should be
held inside NGOs to monitor sexual harassment cases and trainings should
be held on how to document the reports. A hotline to receive complaints
should be established.
-
Messages should encourage the
media to improve the content of television programs and concentrating on
the messages being portrayed, their impact on society, and the
monitoring role of the media
-
Using celebrities is important
to raise awareness of children (Semsem world, Bakar, other
cartoons)
-
The educational authorities
should address sexual harassment by devoting half an hour every morning
to develop "behaviors" and confront societal problems like sexual
harassment.
-
Outreach should be made to
developmental associations, civil society, human rights organizations,
national councils, ministries, youth centers, mosques and churches to
confront to this problem
-
Trainings should be held for
teachers, NGO staff, police stations, youth centers, care homes, social
and psychological specialists and supervisors, to help in encouraging
women to speak out and file reports
-
Correct information and
accurate data must be available on the scope of the problem and how to
confront it
-
Trainings for journalists
should be held on broadening the role of male and female media leaders
Youth:
-
Addressing the society's
values critically is very important, such as the encouragement men get
from other men to flirt with women, and the blame put on women for
supposedly encouraging him
-
Women and girls should be
encouraged to break the silence on sexual harassment and speak about
it
-
We must work to change the
stereotype of sexual harassment being the fault of women
-
Sexual harassment must be
monitored even for children, and moral and sex education given to reduce
this trend in the next generation
-
Advocacy must be made for a
law against sexual harassment independent of what exists in the Egyptian
penal code
-
An awareness campaign should target the
Egyptian society of all classes and ages
-
A study should be done on the
psychology of the harasser in order to deal with this behavior
effectively
-
Negative changes in society
should be addressed and experts should make recommendations on how to
confront harassers on a daily basis The
role police in protecting citizens and society should be emphasized and
they should not be allowed to support the harasser.
|
|