Fighting Against the Sexual Harassment of Cairo’s Women: A Battle of Pink Taxis, Social Media and Art

This week, Hana Zeina Ingram examines the issue of:

Fighting Against the Sexual Harassment of Cairo’s Women: A Battle of Pink Taxis, Social Media and Art

Cairo is a city that assaults the senses. The sound of its traffic: the relentless beeping of horns and the yelled conversations between drivers, standing outside their cars in frustration. The taste of its street food: the quickly fried falafels wrapped in powdery baladi bread, charred onions sprinkled upon a mound of spicy koshary. The beauty of its Nile sunset: a scorching orb melting into the ripples of the river. Unfortunately, the type of assault that Egypt’s hectic capital is most known for is not of a sensory nature, but an insidious one.

 

99% of all Egyptian women have experienced some form of harassment in their lifetimes (a figure that has remained stubborn throughout the years). Public transport has served as the breeding ground for the vast majority of these non-consensual advances. The gendered segregation of transportation has been implemented for years as a response, in the form of female-only buses and metro carriages. This reaction is by no means unique to Egypt. Several countries including Mexico, Brazil and India have implemented similar policies, and the goal of each ‘Ladies Only’ sign is the same: to battle the sexual harassment of women. However, given its official status as the most dangerous megacity for women in the world, the effects of gendered segregation in Cairo is especially significant.

 

In 2015 a further step was taken to protect commuting women, with the launch of Pink Taxi, a service with female only drivers and passengers. Although this initiative was based on the metro’s segregated carriages, it spurred a new stream of criticism: that by relying on gender segregation, government policies and initiatives like Pink Taxi were adapting to the harassment, rather than attempting to solve it. In encouraging Egyptian women to isolate themselves from the opposite sex, every public space shared by both genders is portrayed as an inevitable environment for harassment. The Egyptian man is permanently vilified and the Egyptian woman is likewise victimised.

 

Of course, female-only spaces are not limited to Cairo’s transportation. A popular counterargument is that these environments (be it a metro carriage or a public swimming pool or a cafe) are havens that, in fact, empower women. However, along with the safety it offers, the segregation ‘solution’ represents a burden on Egyptian women exclusively. The trains offer only two female carriages each. In a metro system of only three transport lines, servicing a population of over 10 million (the underground is by far the most popular mode of transport used in Cairo today), a mere two carriages is inadequate for the thousands of women travelling on them every day. Meanwhile, Pink Taxi charges higher fare rates than regular taxis, making it an unaffordable expense for many. The question we must ask ourselves is why these women, who have either experienced harassment or fear its possibility, are the ones who have to squeeze into claustrophobic train cars or spend more on taxi trips? These burdens may seem small, and may not be felt to the maximum extent every day, but they exist nonetheless.

 

This month a new anti-harassment agenda emerged. On the 25 November 2018, Bassita, an Egyptian NGO, posted a video introducing their anti-sexual harassment campaign: ‘Speak Up’. CairoScene, a widely read online publication, praised it as ‘the biggest anti-sexual harassment campaign’ of the Middle East. This accolade is strange for several reasons. The most obvious one is that the campaign has yet to begin – it has only a 1:29 minute video to show for itself. When analysing the message given in the video, this praise seems even more bizarre. As its name indicates, ‘Speak Up’ emphasises silence as the crucial obstacle to tackling sexual harassment in Cairo. At first it seems to lay this responsibility solely on the victim: ‘Harassment affects many women and girls. Some of them speak up, and some don’t.’ This is problematic, as it completely ignores the stigma that is prevalent in the majority of instances when a victim speaks out against her attacker. The viewer is then told to ‘stand with her, not against her’. While solidarity with the harassed is vital, this appeal is not supported by any examples of how one should show this support, other than to share the video. Clearly, Bassita’s initiative is strongly rooted in the influence of social media. It is therefore surprising that the campaign did not mention Cairo’s most recent harassment scandal.

 

On the 11 May 2018, Amal Fathy, an Egyptian human rights defender, was arrested in her home. This arrest was in response to a video she had posted on Facebook, accounting her experience of harassment and criticising the Egyptian government for its continuous failure to effectively improve the situation for its female population. Fathy represents the very agenda Bassita is promoting: she spoke up against her harasser, and against the system that enabled him to carry out his attack. She has now spent over 150 days in prison and has been served a two-year sentence. Her attacker remains free. Rather than make vague appeals to speak up, humanitarian organizations should target Cairo’s political power – the authorities that Amal Fathy challenged.

 

Several months before the launching of ‘Speak Up’, a very different anti-harassment project was developed. Plan International (a UK based organisation) started running art lessons for Cairo’s tuk tuk drivers. Like taxis, tuk tuks are common sites of harassment, particularly for young schoolgirls. As they paint and mould clay, these men are exposed to the detrimental harm they cause whenever they harass, and are taught about the importance of gender sensitivity. This particular initiative has no social media platform to speak of. It targets the harassers as opposed to the harassed, and it revolves around educating rather than blame. The aim is to build a relationship of respect between the male driver and the female passenger – to ensure a safe mode of transportation that is not dependent on segregation but on a respectful interaction. This is the road that all of Egypt’s anti-sexual harassment initiatives, both foreign and grassroots, should take.