Ain Shams University inaugurated on Monday its first unit to combat sexual harassment, under the auspices of the university’s vice president Wahab Ezzat, a delegation from the Swedish embassy in Cairo and two representatives from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Magdy Khaled and Germaine Haddad. The new unit aims to encourage students and employees to take part in activities that raise awareness about sexual harassment and to instruct them how to act and what measures to take when encountering acts of harassment. The unit will receive both “formal and informal” complaints anonymously relating to the matter. Speaking to Egyptian Streets, Jon Hedenström, First Secretary Regional Development Cooperation/Human Rights and Democracy (Sida) at the Swedish embassy in Cairo says that a counseling room will be created where people can report incidents of sexual harassment and informally talk about their experiences. “As sexual harassment remains a controversial topic in Egypt the creation of informal channels for reporting sexual harassment is important,” Hedenström, who participated in the inauguration of the new unit, said. If the problem at hand fails to be solved informally the university will formally deal with the complaint and…
