Invitation

ECWR Press Conference: Making Our Streets Safer for Everyone

ECWR is pleased to invite you to a press conference marking the conclusion of the first phase of our campaign against sexual harassment, Making Our Streets Safer…For Everyone.

The conference will cover the following topics:

• The results of our analysis of over 2500 sexual harassment complaints that we’ve received;
• Our report on sexual harassment laws in six countries (Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, India, France, and United Kingdom), as well as relevant articles from the Egyptian penal code; and 
• The components of our campaign, including:

1)   Legal Advocacy: Does Egypt need new legislation to stop sexual harassment or are the existing articles of the Egyptian penal code enough?

2)   Media & NGOs: How can we impact public opinion and influence local communities?

3)   Youth: How can we best involve youth in our efforts to stop sexual harassment?

The conference will take place on Saturday, March 24, 2007 at the Pyramisa Hotel, Versailles Hall, in Dokki, beginning at 10:30 AM.

We feel strongly that your participation in this event will greatly enhance the quality of our discussion.  We would greatly appreciate your attendance.

For more information please contact us at ecwr@link.net     

ECWR Chair

Nehad Abul Komsan

                                                                                                          Lawyer  

 Making Our Streets Safer … For Everyone

In response to complaints from many women detailing increased suffering and incidences of sexual harassment in our streets, ECWR began to organize a campaign to stop sexual harassment. For a year and a half now, since October 2005, we have carried out activities for the first phase of this campaign against street harassment. This phase has included volunteer participation in each of its processes, including:

• Distributing and collecting questionnaires that ask women and girls about their stories or experiences with sexual harassment. This information has been used to prepare meaningful statistics in support of this campaign. Over 2500 questionnaires were collected, narrating some of the many miserable stories of sexual harassment;
• Building a network of twenty-five NGOs;
• Reaching out to media and journalists (including Dream, Orbit and Channel 2) to host on-air discussions about sexual harassment and to raise awareness of the issue amongst the greater public as well as the media itself;
• Consulting with almost 100 volunteers to take suggestions and develop innovative ideas;
• Completing a study of sexual harassment laws from six other countries, and providing a report in both Arabic and English; and
• Cooperating with a marketing company who volunteered to develop contacts with the campaign sponsors and help plan our public awareness activities.  

In addition to hearing the results of the first phase, attendees will have the opportunity to express their opinions on the next phase, and reflect on the emerging constitutional amendments.

We feel that presenting the results of this first phase of our work is a step in the direction of making our streets safer for everyone. Cooperation with NGOs, the media and the concerned authorities is crucial to developing public awareness. We hope to direct the attention of different populations and communities (such as youth, men, women and students) to understanding their roles in promoting awareness of this trend and efforts to change it, and to direct concern about women and girls on the streets of Egypt into constructive advocacy to shape the law in this regard.