Cairo Metro to Install Surveillance Cameras to Fight Sexual Harassment

The Egyptian Metro Company announced on Monday plans to install surveillance cameras inside the first and second Cairo metro lines as part of its efforts to modernize systems and fight sexual harassment, according to the official spokesperson for the Metro Company, Ahmed Abdel Hady.

Hady added that the new trains supplied from South Korea are already equipped with surveillance cameras and that punitive legal measures that will be taken against harassers if caught by the security cameras.

In late 2020, Egypt received the fifth train under an agreement with South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem to supply 32 new modernized trains for Cairo Metro’s Line 3. The agreement includes providing an eight-year maintenance deal for trains as well as technical support from Hyundai Rotem and the assembly of 10 trains locally in Egypt.

He used the example of the recent case of the Egyptian woman who recorded a harassment incident inside the metro on her phone, which sparked outrage on social media and led to the arrest of the man accused.

A few days prior to that incident, a woman was found dead from her apartment’s balcony after it was revealed that the building’s doorman and another resident, as well as the victim’s landlord were involved in the tenant’s death. The three men have been referred to criminal trial over various charges related to the death of a woman who fell to her death from her apartment’s balcony.

Around the same time, Egypt’s Public Prosecution referred ‘Maadi Child Abuser’ Mohamed Gawdat to criminal court after his arrest after he was caught on camera harassing a seven-year old girl.