Savage Sexual Harassment in Arab Countries Sparks Conference

If you're a woman trying to walk to the market in an Arab country, completely covered from head to toe, and find yourself sexually harassed, just remember: it's your fault. You and your Jezebel behavior and clothes.

At least, that's what conservative forces would like you to believe. But a conference sponsored by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights has another place to lay the blame: the absence of laws criminalizing sexual harassment, the wink and the nod given by police to perpetrators, and jealous men using taking revenge against women for entering the workforce (and, as they see it, snatching their jobs away). Zeinab Radwan, deputy parliament speaker in Egypt, decries the "savage" assaults on females, which have "gone beyond all limits with the harassment of children." Hey -- they'll grow up to steal your job in a decade or so, right?

If you're a woman in Egypt who has never been sexually harassed, congrats: you're in the lucky 17%. (If you're a foreign woman in Egypt, that's the lucky two percent for you.) The other 83% of you understand what Radwan is talking about from personal experience. In Yeman, nine-tenths of women are all too familiar with this, and unwanted pinching is particularly widespead -- and we're not talking about the friendly cheek-tweaks you get from that one aunt. But don't expect to see this reflected in court statistics, because women who try to report on men are terrorized and silenced by traditional leaders, according to activist Amal Basha.

It's almost funny that, in Syria, the harassment is so bad, men from traditional families have been pushed into inverting gender roles and doing the grocery shopping to spare their mothers, wives, and sisters from abuse. Almost.

The recent conference, the first of its kind in the region, attracted activists from 17 Arab countries. The fact that this event could take place at all, upsetting the "hear no evil, speak no evil" mentality on abuse of women, is sign of progress, though certainly not enough so to put the whole situation in the "good news" column. What cracked the traditional silence on the subject? Three years ago, disturbing videos of mob sexual harassment during the holiday season in Cairo spread across the blogosphere, causing enough shock and outrage to force Egypt into considering some woman-friendly laws.

The conference's goal of enabling women to be able to actually walk down the street safely might be a radical one, but you know, dream big.

Photo courtesy of Indigo Goat's Flickr photostream.