Opportunistic Islamists and women rights in transitional Egypt

As the revolution managed to throw down Mubarak’s dictatorship, women rights activists find themselves facing yet another threat to the status of women in Egypt. Activists have long been fighting the bureaucracy and the patriarchal culture, now they’re facing a brand new enemy.

Multiple protests have been recently staged in protest of the parents contact law which regulates the rights of divorced parents to see their children. The law allowed women to have custody of their children upon divorce up until the children turn 15 years old then gives the children the right to choose their parent afterwards.

The protests were organized in several places such as The Ministry of Justice, the Azhar, and the Journalists Syndicate with hundreds showing up in protest of this particular law. Several new movements have organized the protests such as “Saving the Family” “Egypt’s Men Revolution” movements and they included hundreds of fathers. The protests also included many Salafis, (members of a hardcore Islamist group).

According to the protesters, the divorced fathers can only see their children for 3 hours a week in a public place and if the mother decline holding the visit, there are no legal punishment for her. The protests called for a chance for the parents to see their children for a longer time and to change the age of mother’s custody to 9 years for girls and 7 years for boys.

The organizers and participants of the protests accused two institutions, namely the National Council for Women and the Ministry of Family and Population of corrupting the social life in Egypt and demanded prosecution of different female figures that were previously responsible for these institutions including Suzan Mubarak.

The dangerous thing is the language used during the protests calling for an Islamic state and full implementation of the Islamic law as they called for scrapping what they called “Suzan Mubarak laws” in referral to women-promoting laws introduced during Mubarak era after years of campaigning from civil society activists, but it’s now carrying the stigma of the old regime. The protesters described these laws as corruptive of family nature, increasing divorce rates, and promoting women’s promiscuity!

In reaction to the protests, the grand mufti of Egypt has announced that this law will be reconsidered according to religious jurisprudence. Also, the Justice Minster’s deputy has also announced that the contact law will be amended so that fathers can host their children up to 48 hours; and banning the travel of children from divorced parents unless both parents consent.

These statements have outraged women rights activists calling these demands for revoking the laws as opportunistic and unfair. They argued that despite the flaws, these laws did their own good and helped promote women’s status in society. It’s also argued that these laws were imposed on the society as a whole as there was no proper legislation process in place during the old regime’s rule. The activists demanded the laws remain in place until the legislative bodies in Egypt restore their function and have a proper process of debate and discussion.

While I was always critical of the way such women rights institutions worked whether in terms of corruption or the way they used to introduce laws without properly addressing the community’s culture and concerns, many of the laws that were introduced under Mubarak’s rule as important and necessary steps towards women and children’s rights. Different rights were granted by these laws, such as facilitating women’s ability to get divorced, to pass on their nationality to their children, to issue birth certificate for their children even if the fathers decline paternity, protection against FGM, rising the age of marriage to 18 years old.

The deeply seated patriarchy in our culture causes many to see some of the rights in negative light and feel they’re corruptive of society. The association between institutions that created these laws, whether governmental or NGOs, to foreign donors enforces the negative image they have in some corners of the society.

It is notable to note that patriarchy here isn’t attributed to Islam as many in the West like to believe. It permeates in all layers of Egyptians, whether Muslim or Christian, however patriarchy usually uses religion as an excuse to perpetuate its values.

These laws and issues affect the society in so many ways. I am hopeful that this critical transition period will not cause any compromise in women’s status. Rightly, this is not the proper time to change any laws as we do not have a parliament yet. I am hopeful that the New Egypt would allow for more discussion and debate and that more moderate voices will join and support promoting the rights of women in Egypt.

Prophet Mohamed and Child Marriage?

Today, I was in Cairo University participating in a youth event for NGO employment and volunteering opportunities. I was happy to see so many youth interested in the reproductive health awareness initiative we’re doing. We were distributing booklets and flyers about those topics and things were going great and smooth until that guy showed up.


One of the flyers was on child marriage explaining the social and health implications of such practice. I never thought it could provoke people because family planning and HIV were the foremost topics that do. The guy asked me how come I want people to delay marriage until 18 while it is completely natural, and his own sister is married at the age of 12! He went on to say that old people used to marry at this age and no one ever complained, wondering why we want to change “the nature” of the society. He even said he’s engaged to a 15 year old and they are about to marry soon. He said that the practice is common in his hometown (rural lower Egypt) and that they marry without issuing official papers until they turn 18 then they declare it legally.


Away from rural Egypt, I took the discussion to twitter, I was even surprised by another Egyptian living in Canada who found increasing marriage age to 18 was exaggerated and unnecessary. He said that early marriage has no health or psychological implications. He even said that world suffers from many problems because of delayed marriage! It’s scientifically known however that early marriage jeopardizes the health of both mothers and children, causing more risk of abortion and maternal mortality.


Back to the rural person, what made me unable to argue with him was the fact that he used Prophet Mohammed as a justification for early marriage as it is known that he married his wife Aisha at a very young age. That was basically why he believed such awareness efforts were corruptive of “good societies”. He said he saw Prophet Mohamed as a role model for life and that all Muslims should take this view. While I tried to argue that there’s no comparison between that day’s society and ours, etc it evidently seemed useless.


This conversation made me think of culture and how it impacts people. While this person is educated, he still thinks that all those practices are natural and pose no health threat. He places no value to science over what he was raised to. Is it that his perception of health concepts is limited? What about the rights of those girls? Their right to freely choose their husbands, to finish their education, and to happily live their adolescent years. These are all necessary factors to form a woman able to raise healthy children.


Yes, the conditions rural Egyptians live in are different and women carry more responsibilities from an early age which make them mature earlier. The community there sees women’s sole function is to marry and raise children; however I can’t help but see it as a violation of these young girls to develop themselves fully.


I’d like to think that these two guys were an exception, however studies show that 11% of currently female youth in rural areas were married before age 16, and 30% before 18.




There is a law against marriage before age 18 and awareness efforts taking place, but these kinds of attitudes have to be dealt with carefully since they’re deeply embedded in the culture. Religious leads have to play a key role in countering such beliefs and attitudes.


Child marriage is obviously declining in Egypt, there’s more to be done, much more!

The Shackles of Virginity

Egypt and a lot more Arab countries are now witnessing an unprecedented case of vibrancy and mobilization in what is called the Arab spring. As I said before such state of revolution are not only political, but transcend it to personal barriers as well. It is at times like these when we should reconsider where we stand and where we want to be in the future.

Patriarchy is one of the biggest problems we have and it affects the lives of women and men alike. Women are controlled in different ways. They have limited options; their bodies are under control; which manifests itself in various forms, ranging from dress style to female genital mutilation.

Another way to control women's sexuality is keeping their virginity. An incredibly huge amount of pressure is placed upon women to stay virgin. Society has constructed several methods to make sure that women stay virgins until marriage.

In Egypt, a practice called dukhla baladi used to and still exists in some parts of the country, especially remote rural areas. On the wedding night, the bride and groom are accompanied by members of their family. The bride is usually held down and a woman inserts her finger in the vagina after folding her finger with a piece of cloth to receive the blood that results from the breakage of the hymen. This blood is usually called the blood of honor.

Although this practice is on the wane, other practices exists to ensure the virginity of female on their wedding night. The bride prepares a white piece of cloth, commonly called al-mahrama, is placed beneath her during the first intercourse.. The blood received on the cloth is later displayed to family members of the husband and wife, as a proof of virginity.

What's interesting is that it doesn't only place pressure on women, but also on men. It proves the man was virile enough to do his task. It is not uncommon that men do not perform well on the wedding night due to all the pressure, the lack of experience and sexual education.

Sometimes the girls do not bleed, not because they lost their virginity but because the hymen could be elastic or has pores which allows penetration without significant bleeding. This could cause serious troubles. In many cases the bride is taken to a gynecologist to check on her hymen and if it was "used" before. This test can determine the bride's fate forever. Either her dignity is restored or she's tossed to a life of shame, and in some cases it results in "honor crimes".

I was struck when I talked to family members that this tradition is alive and well, even among upper class and educated people, perhaps more commonly in Upper Egypt, where more conservative gender values exist.

What struck me though is to find origins for such practice in the Jewish tradition. In The Bible, Deuteronomy 22: 13-21 recounts how men should handle whether finding out their wives were virgins or not. It also mentions using a piece of cloth to prove the bride's honor but in this case, it is shown in front of the elders of the town.

What disturbs me most is the extent to which such personal and delicate affair can become the center of attention of the whole family. Such interference undermines the will of the newly married couple and can sabotage their private relationship. I personally believe that these matter should be only handled within the couple themselves.

Society should realize that it is not the hymen that determines honor. Honor is a broader concept that entails honesty, integrity and trust. Women can have sex without losing their hymen. Also, The society must stop the double standards about male and female virginity. While female virginity is a necessity, men are forgiven if they have pre-marital sex.

It is now up to the young generations to revolt against those traditions and choose to have their private sexual life, away from the interference of the old guardians. They should be able to discuss and share their feelings and concerns.

Once again, revolutions are not only political, but also personal!

Do We Know How to Handle Sexual Harassment?

News came out yesterday about a draft law that has been proposed by the government issuing harsher punishments for those who commit sexual harassment and rape crimes, up to the point of death sentence.

The new law tackles various points: adding telephone and the internet to different media through which harassment can occur; and giving more conditions when rape convicts get harsher punishments such as reconsidering victim's age and cases where the victim has been raped by more than one convicts.

This is a reminder of a similar law which just passed a few days ago for combating thuggery. The news of that law was alarming to me as well as many other human rights activists. The move towards stricter law for thuggery was met with a lot of criticism. Just before this particular law was passed, the military forces cracked down on Tahrir protesters, many were detained and tortured. These protesters were claimed to be thugs which puts us at a dilemma of how to determine who's a thug and who's a protester, especially because we are at a time where military courts (where people do not enjoy their full rights of fair trial) have been handling these cases.

Back to sexual harassment, it is quite obvious there's a problem with the way we're dealing with this issue. The phenomenon which began surfacing rather recently in Egypt is rampant. But is issuing stricter punishments the solution for this multifaceted problem? Here's why I don't think so:

I find the process highly questionable. The ministerial council pushes for more punishments for sexual harassment and the supreme military council is happy to enforce these, because this is the language the military best understands. In normal circumstances the ministerial council can propose draft laws and submit them to the parliament to discuss them further. Either way there need to be more public debate about it.

Photo Credit: Amr Nabil/AP/File

Drafting laws without counseling civil society bodies or human rights experts is pretty concerning. These laws have to be compatible with human rights law, and there need to be clear definition and good consensus on what sexual assault entails.

I am more concerned with how to enforce this law, rather than the punishments themselves. There are big question marks on how to get these cases reported? We have a culture of silence about these crimes. It's hard for people to report them because a huge stigma can be placed upon them. Most women who face sexual harassment or even rape never report it to the police or even to their families because their lives can be devastated.

We have this culture of intimidating criminals by increasing punishments. I don’t really believe it works. To be able to overcome a societal problem, we need to handle its underlying causes. All those handling those crimes need to be sensitized about it and fully aware of its implications. By engaging different people in the process of ending the phenomenon of sexual harassment, real achievement can happen on that front.

Faggots for Whores? Or What happened to Women March in Tahrir

Although I am still deeply agitated over what happened today at the women march today in Tahrir, I have to give my personal account as a male who went there to support women’s rally for freedom and democracy.

First, since the call for the march on Facebook, we have got a lot of negative comments either being sarcastic of the whole thing or others who want us to postpone it for later. I am really trying to comprehend the “Let’s save it for later” argument. Is it really concern for stability? Or is it internalized patriarchy that sees women issue as trivial?

So we get together in Tahrir, a few hundreds of women and men. We started to distribute flyers mentioning our demands which were:

I know the demands would be controversial and we expected strong debates at the protest, but what happened in reality was much worse than any of us expected. 

The flyer had the following demands:

1. Women's participation in shaping Egypt's constitutional, legal and political future.

2. A new civil constitution that respects citizenship, espouses equality and abolishes discrimination.

3. Amending laws so that it give full equality and rights, including personal status law.

4. Not allowing women's reproductive role to take over her participation in public and private life.

5. Establishing law for criminalization of violence against women inside and outside their home.

6. The constitution must allow women to run for presidency.

We started chanting for women rights. Just as we started chanting a group of couple hundred men started gathering and then started the chant race! They said: The man is a man and the woman is a woman; you are the children of Suzan Mubarak; Go home women!

We tried to chant back singing the national anthem and saying “Men and women are one hand”. They seemed very provoked by our mere existence and their looks were full of sarcasm and ridicule. Apparently the possibility of women running for presidency was beyond their misogynous ego.

The shocking part is that they used Islamic chants against us saying “Women’s voice is a shame”, “why didn’t God send female prophets?” This was quickly followed by rounding us up and pushing against us and ugliness followed. Women and girls were groped, their hair got pulled; dirty harassers hands were all over their bodies. I did my best to protect my friends and we got into physical and verbal fights.

I was called a faggot defending whores. I was told I wasn’t Egyptian for doing this.

So now. Some accuse us of being too controversial. Some accuse us of using the wrong time and place to voice our grievances. Until when would we remain silent? And till when we will be too shy to call for women rights? I am not sorry I called for justice. I am just really appalled but what my friends had to go through. We managed to get our voices heard for once, and it won’t be the last time.

I hope what happened today will shed some light on the unacceptable attitudes towards women. More men need to speak out for women too. This will definitely help our cause.

 The battle is hard. Mubarak’s regime and authoritarianism destroyed people’s sense of diversity. It may take years to actually change attitudes. I think we are up for it though. 

Egyptian Women Are Coming!

Tomorrow is the International Women Day, but let’s forget international for now and look at what’s happening in Egypt.

Egyptian women have been a crucial part of the revolution, even by helping planning when Asmaa Mahfouz called for protests and spread it through social media. Women fought against the regime alongside men and fell victim to brutality and murder at the hands of police and thugs.

Now women are moving, sobering up and breaking the taboos of patriarchy and organizing a protest in Tahrir for democracy and women rights. The initiative didn’t come from NGOs or any institutions, but was called for by men and women; activists, academics, civil society workers, and others. Jan 25 revolution proves to be breaking more barriers than previously thought.

Women demands range from abandoning FGM and sexual harassment to being able to run for president. Some demands stir controversy more than others though; especially when women call for ending polygamy or equal inheritance! The demands are also political asking for more representation in government and parliament. 

Controversy also comes from different grounds. Sally Zahran whose photo became one of the central images of revolution martyrs and whom I personally saw perform in a beautiful piece called Cairo Complaints Choir, caused a debate when some people asked for avoiding using her photo with her hair uncovered and spread another one of her wearing the veil. Also, people debated whether Sally died in Tahrir or not, and her mother appeared on TV to say that she fell out of balcony after a fight with her family when they ordered her to stay home and avoid protesting. The true story will never surface I guess. 

The fact that all that controversy was focused on the beautiful daring Sally reveals a problem and discomfort with free women like her. Would the same happen if Sally was a guy?

So far the event seems to be stirring debate, mostly among women themselves who are debating whether women are oppressed or not, and whether they should go out to call for their right nor not, and when. This is all healthy and hopefully a step towards the long awaited new Egypt. 

Conversation with a nun!

A few days ago I had a conversation with a Coptic Christian nun. We work together and we meet every now and then. This conversation is particularly important for me as I always felt that the polarity is more obvious when it has Muslim-Male on one side and Christian-Female on the other side!

No one can deny that the situation in Egypt sectarian-wise was deteriorating. A year ago a Christian friend of mine said “It’s like everyone is holding a knife behind his back for the others now”. This mistrust wasn’t only among people of different religion. It was a general state of mistrust fueled by the oppression and frustration we were living in Egypt particularly under Mubarak’s rule.

Also, no one can deny that Christians in Egypt were suffering from unequal treatment; they have restriction to build churches and incomplete access to jobs particularly related to academia and the military. However, Muslims also suffered as long as they are not privileged through socioeconomic or political status. Moreover, there are other minorities in Egypt whose voices were unheard. These are the voices of the people who didn’t belong to the three Abarahmic religions recognized by our state (Islam, Christianity & Judaism).

Monastery in Egypt

I met the nun a few times before, but we never approached politics or the situation of Christians. I was glad she opened up thanks go to the Jan25 revolution that liberated people from their state of fear and created a sense of solidarity.

She recounted her experience with the notorious State Security Investigations aka Political Police famous for crushing opposition against the regime, and for torturing and intimidating people. It also made a lot of community and charity work impossible. She was organizing an event to raise awareness of FGM which hosted a group of experts including an Islamic scholar to weigh in and show the Islamic stance against FGM. They forced her to go the police station at midnight so they can investigate about the event. In order to force her to come, they arrest a priest who works with her. It was more of an ordeal for her because she just underwent foot surgery.

We discussed constitutional article 2 (which says that Islam is the religion of the state) and expressed how it makes them feel as 2^nd class citizens; we also talked about how ridiculous it is to have ID cards which mentions religion of the holder.  

What was interesting to me is that she totally believed that the government was responsible for fueling those sectarian clashes to perpetuate the regime’s stay in power, and to divert people from the political corruption going on.

 It was refreshing we agreed on most things. I felt relieved that we opened up about Christian fears and concerns. I usually felt a degree of tension in our previous dealings. I do hope that the Egyptian solidarity continues to grow.

The solution to sectarianism in Egypt begins with truly acknowledging the problem and working diligently on guaranteeing religious freedom for all.