“The real heroes on the anti-harassment scene are the women who have battled harassment and stood up to it,” said Gaber Nassar, President of Cairo University, at an event held at the university to mark the end of the 2016 activities of the anti-violence, anti-harassment unit. The unit was formed and operated by the university students, male and female.
“The first step to confront harassment,” Dr Nassar said, “is to raise awareness and a sense of guilt among those prone to practicing it.” Harassment is an act that contradicts ethics and law, he said. The success achieved by the student unit indicates that it is possible to put an end to the odious phenomenon of harassment, not only on university campuses but in all of Egypt, he insisted.
The student unit of anti-violence and anti-harassment, according to Dr Nassar, succeeded in broadening the concept of harassment to include not only physical but also verbal and sight harassment. He reminded the students that President Sisi had visited in hospital a young woman who had been victim of harassment; in this, Dr Nassar said, the President made the statement that the State itself is opposed to condoning harassment or appeasing harassers.
As the event drew to an end, Dr Nassar said that the university is in the process of compiling a book to include stories from female university students about their experience with harassment and how they confronted their harassers.
Watani International
16 January 2017