(Cairo, 19 July, 2020) During this week, two tragedies circulated on social media against two women by their husbands, in which the husbands sent private pictures of their wives to their co-workers and friends and brothers to blackmail them to give up their rights following the material problems that arose between them.
This behavior constitutes criminal activity that ranges from misuse of the Internet, breach of trust, and attempt to blackmail and defamation. These are crimes that reach the penalty of imprisonment and a fine, but the damage that these crimes cause is far exceeding what was stated in the law, as it affects the structure of marital and family life and destroys trust within the family and hence the stability of society.
ECWR is monitoring with great concern the increase in these crimes, as many complaints have been received by women suffering from the threat of posting private pictures or videos on the Internet as part of a process of threat and extortion to waive their rights to seek separation or maintenance for their children or even to give up custody of children (this also includes from brothers pushing their sisters to let of their right to inheritance or other material rights).
Nehad Abulkomsan, ECWR’s chairwoman, asserts that these behaviors are issued only by a criminal husband or brother, who seeks to desecrate his own relationship with his wife or sister, and is considered to be the worst kind of betrayal where crimes are committed by those who are supposed to be trusted.
These crimes are new to the Egyptian Society and demonstrate the lack of respect for the family values and principles that men should enjoy towards their wife and family. The common spread of these new traits for some men is due to the lack of responsibility for family spending and thus, it is an attempt to blackmail the wife to spend on the family or if she asks for spending or divorce, as well as the weakness of the law and enforcement mechanisms, which weakens the deterrence of the law.
Therefore, ECWR calls on Parliament to quickly issue a law to consider the relationship of kinship in all crimes is “aggravating circumstance“, in which the penalty is doubled if it is committed by a person who is entrusted to the woman, whether the husband, brother, father, or others who are supposed to be in a safe environment. This is in order to provide a sense of safety in society in light of relationships which have become based on conflict of interests, blackmail and defamation of women. ECWR also calls for a swift adoption of a unified law to confront violence against women.
