Caution: The information below may be triggering due to the details of sexual assault cases reported.
The streets of Cairo are always alive: cars honking, vendors calling out, friends chatting at late-night cafés. But for many women, walking through the city means staying alert. A simple stroll can shift in seconds: a stare, a comment, a hand that stretches too far.
Twelve years ago, a United Nations report found that 99 percent of Egyptian women had experienced sexual harassment in some form. The figure was shocking, yet for most, it only confirmed what they already knew: which is that harassment was part of daily life.
Since then, laws have changed, awareness campaigns were launched, and social movements sparked. Yet every few months, a new harassment case makes headlines, another reminder that the problem is far from solved.
In 2020, the case of Ahmed Bassam Zaki, a former university student accused of sexually harassing and assaulting multiple women, ignited a nationwide conversation. His arrest was seen as a turning point, proof that authorities were finally listening. But, the headlines did not stop there.
In 2024 alone, several cases reignited public outrage. Habiba El-Shamaa, a young woman, suffered fatal injuries after jumping from a moving Uber. The circumstances remain unclear, but her case renewed fears around women’s safety in private transportation, adding to long-standing concerns about harassment in public transport.
A month later, another woman in Old Cairo jumped from a moving tuk-tuk after the driver allegedly harassed her. He was later arrested. That same year, Karim Selim was convicted of torturing and murdering three women in New Cairo. The crimes, carried out inside a soundproof room, exposed the horrifying extremes of gender-based violence and the gaps in protection that persist.
These crimes, among many others, show that despite growing awareness, Egyptian women continue to live with fear. For every case that makes headlines, countless others remain untold, hidden between friends’ warnings or lost in silence.
Over the past decade, Egypt has introduced several legal reforms to combat harassment. In December 2023, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi ratified Law 185, imposing stricter penalties for sexual harassment, including higher fines and longer prison sentences, particularly for incidents that occur in workplaces or public spaces.
Earlier, in 2020, Law 177 was passed to protect the personal data of survivors of harassment and assault, a move meant to encourage women to report violations without fear of exposure. Despite these efforts, many say the changes have not reached the streets. According to the most recent data from the Arab Barometer’s fifth wave in 2020, Egypt ranked first in the Arab world for sexual harassment. Within a twelve-month period, 63 percent of women reported experiencing some form of harassment, verbal or physical, with rates rising to nearly 90 percent among young women aged 18 to 29.
Nour*, who requested anonymity, recalled a terrifying experience in 2024. She was driving in New Cairo when a cockroach flew into her car, forcing her to pull over.
“As I stood outside making a call, a man approached, offering to help,” she said. “Then I realized he was exposing himself. I rushed into the car and locked the door, but he grabbed me through the window. I froze.”
Like many women, Nour was used to catcalling, but getting violated physically was a first. She said, “I always thought I’d know what to do, but my only instinct was to escape.”
Lobna Darwish, director of the Women’s Rights and Gender Programme at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), believes Egypt’s fight against harassment cannot rely solely on law enforcement. She argues that real progress depends on data, prevention, and changing social attitudes.
“Interventions and policies targeting harassment and women’s rights have often not been built on data, but on impressions and celebrations of success, even though we have no data to prove it,” Darwish told Egyptian Streets.
The lack of comprehensive statistics, she explained, makes it nearly impossible to assess whether women are actually safer. “The only available data is from the Egyptian Family Health Survey, published in 2022, which actually shows a slight increase in sexual violence in the private sphere.”
While Darwish acknowledged that Egypt has made strides in legally defining harassment and identifying unsafe spaces such as public transportation and workplaces, she warned that relying solely on harsher punishments can be counterproductive.
“The government often treats higher penalties as the main, and sometimes only, response to social issues,” she said. “But this is not based on evidence that harsher penalties actually reduce harassment.”
Some changes, she added, may even have unintended consequences. “Turning sexual harassment from a misdemeanor into a felony may sound good symbolically, but it makes proceedings much longer, sometimes three or four years instead of one. That means more pressure, more emotional strain, and many women lose hope before justice is served.”
According to Darwish, the real indicator of progress is not the amount of sentenced perpetrators. “The real question is not how many people got long prison sentences. It is how many women report harassment, how many cases are referred to prosecution, and how many actually make it to court.”
Still, many survivors hesitate to report at all, often out of fear that speaking up could turn against them. “The Fairmont case had a very bad impact on women’s confidence in the justice system,” Darwish said.
In 2020, Menna Abdulaziz reported that she had been raped and assaulted by several men at a hotel in Cairo. What followed exposed deep flaws in how the justice system treats survivors. Instead of protection, several witnesses and even Abdulaziz herself were detained on accusations related to “violating Egyptian family values” and other morality-based charges.
Abdulaziz spent over 100 days in detention before the prosecution announced there were no grounds for the charges. A juvenile witness in the same case faced similar accusations and also spent months in detention before being acquitted.
“It showed a worrying pattern of criminalizing victims and witnesses, which had a chilling effect not only on survivors but also on women’s rights organizations,” Darwish added on the Fairmont case.
That fear is not unfounded. “Women are not protected equally,” she continued. “You might be protected only if you act the way the government thinks a woman should. Otherwise, the justice system itself becomes dangerous; you could end up in prison.”
Darwish said this pattern sends a dangerous message to women across Egypt: that justice is conditional. When reporting an assault can lead to prosecution, many choose silence over risk.
For Darwish, the issue is not only legal but also systemic. “Without real data, survivor protection, and a functioning justice process, reforms remain symbolic,” she said. What is needed, she argued, is a justice system that women can trust, one that prioritizes prevention and protection, not only punishment.
There has been visible progress, with louder public conversations, clearer laws, and moments when accountability seemed possible over the past 12 years.
Yet, for many women, everyday life still means caution and self-protection. Real safety, as Darwish put it, will only exist when women can report violence or harassment without fear of blame or punishment, and when justice moves beyond the pages of law to become something they can actually feel on Egypt’s streets.
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