CAIRO: Eleven sexual harassment incidents were reported in public parks in Cairo during the first day of Eid Al-Fitr holiday, Catch a Harasser group said Friday.
“Out of the 11 incidents, five occurred in public parks in downtown Cairo,” the anti-sexual harassment group said on its facebook page.
On July 10, the group named six parks in Cairo;Al Azhar, Al Orman, Fustat, Merryland, Giza Zoo, and Gabalaya as “sexual harassment hotspots.”
“These parks provide harassers a suitable medium and an opportunity for harassment in a hit-and-run style,” cofounder of the campaign Hatem Shabaan said in the statement.
A report released by the United Nations in June 2013 calculated that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women had been sexually harassed, either verbally or physically.
According to a 2014 report issued by Egypt’s Population Council, sexual harassment among girls aged 13-17 hiked from 46.4 percent in 2009 to 49.5 percent in 2014.
Girls aged from 13 to 29 witnessed a decrease in sexual harassment rates from 49.7 percent in 2009 to 42.6 percent in 2014.
The punishment for sexual harassers was toughened under amendments adopted by former interim President Adly Mansour, and assaulters now face up to five years in prison.