Middle East & Africa | Rebelling against rape

Egyptian women speak up about sex crimes

They are fed up with state media that call a gang-rape a “group sex party”

|CAIRO

WHEN NADEEN ASHRAF was walking through a wealthy part of Cairo last month, she was not surprised to hear sexual comments aimed her way. Most women in Egypt have experienced sexual harassment or violence. But her catcaller was surprised when the 22-year-old philosophy student jumped into the taxi he was driving. “I had an hour-long conversation with him,” she recalls. “It was so foreign to him that this was sexual harassment.”

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Speaking up about sex crimes”

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