Egypt changes law after social media campaign raises awareness of sexual assault scourge

Egypt has changed its laws to allow victims of sexual assault to be granted anonymity, following a high profile, ongoing case involving a student accused of committing dozens of offences, including rape and blackmail.

Earlier this month an Instagram account, Assault Police, began publishing the testimonies of women who claimed to have been targeted by  a 21-year-old former student at the prestigious American University of Cairo.

The accusers, some of them reportedly as young as 13, claimed that the youth had committed rape, made blackmail threats and sent them obscene messages.

Egypt’s public prosecution office said in a statement that it had arrested the suspect and had launched an investigation into the offences, of which some were allegedly committed against his fellow students.

And on Wednesday, the government approved a bill which will grant anonymity to victims of sexual offences, accoridng to local media.

Tarek Elawady, a lawyer representing the accusers, said the arrest suggested that sexual assault allegations were at last being taken seriously in Egypt, where women are often blamed and stigmatised if they come forward.

“This is now the start of an opportunity that we must take advantage of,” Mr Elawady told Reuters news agency.

He added: “We must shed our culture of victim blaming. We cannot keep telling girls, ‘It’s because you were walking wrong or were dressed inappropriately’.”

According to Egyptian Streets, an investigative news website, the suspect has already confessed to “a number of the accusations against him related to blackmail and intimidation.”

The suspect confessed to receiving “indecent photographs” from some of the accusers and had threatened to use them for blackmail, but he has denied other claims made against him on social media, according to Egyptian Streets.

The public prosecution office has also called on more victims to come forward.

Egypt is a conservative, patriarchal society in which women say sexual harassment and assault is rampant and where speaking out can bring shame on the victim and her family.

Now, the country's own online #MeToo movement appears to be gathering momentum, following a global campaign to expose sexual assault and harassment of women by those in positions of power across the world.

Research by the UN in 2013 found over 99 percent of women reported having been personally subjected to sexual harassment in Egypt.

Reports of sexual harassment have often peaked during public holidays, such as Eid al-Fitr, and in some years hundreds of women in central Cairo and elsewhere report being subject to mass sexual harassment in streets, public squares and shopping malls.

The public response to gender-based violence has in the past been muted. In the same 2013 study, 84.6 percent of women said bystanders had done nothing to stop harassment or support them.

But a spate of high-profile incidents near Cairo’s Tahrir Square during President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s inauguration celebrations in 2014 led to the government criminalising sexual harassment for the first time.

The government’s National Council for Women reported on Tuesday that it had received 400 complaints and inquiries about violence against women from July 1-5.

On Wednesday, the government approved an amendment to the penal code to guarantee anonymity to victims of sexual assault and harassment.

The head of women’s council Maya Morsi, said the law change to protect the identities of victims was a historic step that showed the government was serious about encouraging women to speak out.