Since 2011, there has been extensive collective action in Egypt around gender based violence, distinguished by a high level of youth involvement and male participation and leadership. In order to understand youth and male agency in collective efforts to address sexual harassment on the streets of Egypt, IDS partnered with the Social Research Center at the American University in Cairo. Together with Lawyers for Justice and Peace, we held a scoping workshop to map out some of the key collective actors, and to decide upon the criteria we for selecting the actors to be added to the database. These criteria are:
- Collective actors that emerged in the post-Mubarak era
- Informal collective actors
- Actively contributing to stopping gender-based violence in public space
- Ensuring men’s involvement whether as leaders or active participants
- Ongoing initiatives at the time of research
- Effective initiatives
Conclusions and findings from collective actor studies
Details of our initial findings, including
- Factors shaping the formation of collective actors
- Factors influencing the relative success of these initiatives
Profiles of collective actors
| Name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
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Arab Women Uprising |
A feminist movement which circulates news about events that are affecting women in all Arab countries, avoiding dependence on formal resources of information such as newspapers or formal media. |
 |
Baheya Ya Misr | Aims to defend social justice issues, in particular women’s citizen rights, lobbying against the constitution and raising awareness within the wider population |
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Bassma (Imprint) |
Tackles issues that it perceives to be neglected in the community such as sexual harassment, street children, literacy and raising awareness on rights, renowned for security patrols |
 |
Fouada Watch | Monitors and documents the performance of the government on gender issues |
 |
Harrassmap | Documents where sexual harassment is happening and give victims a chance to report on it |
|
|
Kat’ Eidak (Off with your hand!) | Work on preventing sexual harassment |
 |
Nefssi (I wish/I would like to/I want) |
Aims to tackle sexual harassment in a different way, For example, members have organised human chain protests |
 |
Operation Anti Sexual Harassment (OpAntiSH) |
Fights against pre-planned forms of gang sexual assault on women during demonstrations |
| Shar’ia Wai’ (An aware/alert street) |
Work in unconventional spaces, using art to address harrassment |
|
 |
Shoft Taharosh (Harassment Seen) |
A coalition of groups addressing sexual harassment and awareness raising |
 |
Teh Marboutah |
In the Arabic language tehmarbouta is a letter, which grammatically, when placed at the end of a word makes it feminine |
