ONLINE SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN EGYPT
This website is done by Farah Rafik, Aya Aboshady, and Basant Samhout for the Multimedia Reporting Capstone at the American University in Cairo taught by professor Naila Hamdy in the Spring Semester of 2020.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
We aim to uncover more about online sexual harassment in Egypt, the psychological damage it causes, and the legal routes one can take if subject to harassment. There are multiple ways that sexual harassment online occurs, but our project specifically focuses on the most common and covert form: the unwanted over-sexualization of women. This occurs in different ways, from flirty direct messages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms, pressurizing someone to engage in sexual conduct, sharing unsolicited nude media, as well as the aggressive development of those messages when ignored or rejected. The project therefore explores how frequent this occurance is, how the harassed typically react, why they choose to react that way.
One of the most alarming things we found out about was the lack of statistics on the issue. So, we took the matter in our own hands and surveyed 613 online users in Egypt.
72.4% of the respondents said they feel as though they've been harassed online before
only 20.4% are aware of the laws on online harassment in Egypt
