Howeida was 15 years old at the time. A man stood in the doorway. He spoke briefly to her father and her step-mother. Then the matter was settled: Howeida would be married to a man from Saudi Arabia for a sum of around euros. The "marriage" lasted a whole 20 days, during which Howeida was repeatedly raped. Then, the man simply departed.
Egyptian Women Post About Sex Crimes, Government Acts
The Arab Spring popular uprising a decade ago proved how effectively young people can mobilize to fight for their freedom. As hundreds of thousands of people packed into the square day after day, women were regularly touched, groped, and shoved around. At some point, swarms of men stripped a handful of women naked or down to their underwear, beat and raped them, and left them to fend for themselves. Most horrific of all, women who reported the abuse were questioned, ignored, or simply told not to go to the protests, the symptom of a patriarchal culture enforced by Muslim clerics and ordinary families alike. The behavior is so pervasive that it has seeped from the streets into schools and homes and workplaces. Women and girls have the right to file reports with the police, but until very recently they were generally dismissed or shamed or even threatened to drop it. The stories about Zaki suggested a disturbing pattern of emotional manipulation: He would pressure girls to talk to him, meet up with him, send him personal photos, and hook up.
The role of women in Egypt has changed throughout history, from ancient to modern times. From the earliest preserved archaeological records, Egyptian women were considered nearly equal to men in Egyptian society, regardless of marital status. Women were stated lower than men when it came to a higher leader in the Egyptian hierarchy counting his peasants. This hierarchy was similar to the way the peasants were treated in the Middle Ages.
To begin with, his name was not "Mike", but Mohammed: he had changed his name in England when he noticed that if he was in a bar, and a mate called out, "Hey Mohammed! You know, I think it's going to be coffee," Mike says earnestly, the sun setting in the desert hills behind him, with the Valley of the Kings just beyond. You know, it's the system in England, asking for coffee, because it's considered vulgar to ask for sex.