This unit will be specialized in research and investigation of all forms of sexual harassment, beating of women and any other form of violence against Egyptian women.
This decision came as a result of the demand of our campaign “Safe Streets for everyone”, which was initiated by the ECWR in 2005 to combat sexual harassment in Egypt. On the legal level, the ECWR has expressed the necessity of establishing a special unit specialized in violent crimes against women which can receive reports with respect to the privacy of the victims in order to encourage women to cooperate with security departments to eliminate harassment, conditioning that civil and legal organizations will monitor police stations in dealing with the reports being filed and the facts of different sexual harassment along with developing the partnership between all the involved parties.
The field research has stressed on the wide spread of the phenomena of sexual harassment, which is considered severe violence against women that reached its epic as “organized political crimes” in the second anniversary of Jan 25th revolution. However, no real investigation up till now has been made.
In the same respect, for the 2012 sexual harassment crime against women report, cases has reached 9468, 329 of them with touching sensitive part of the body while 112 were raping.
For that, the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights demands:
- The quick creation of such a unit with a deadline. Its role should be determined as it should be responsible for gathering and receiving all reports of violence against women in domestic and public violence.
- Officers working in this unit should be trained on how to deal with these types of crimes and be supplied with the necessary tools that could help in hearing and investigating without breaching the rights of victims.
- The approval of the law issued by ECWR in August 2012 that includes a clear definition of sexual harassment and how to combat it as well as seeking the help of governmental and non-government organizations involved
- Punishing the officers who decline to file a report or participate positively or otherwise with the culprit against the women reporter along with punishing of harasser who uses his authorities in doing such act.
- The center is demanding of holding awareness campaigns especially for police officers to raise their awareness and activate their roles in such crimes and how to deal with victims.
