Tech Tools for Female Demonstrators in Cairo

(originally published by iQ)

Cairo’s Tahrir Square became an international symbol for revolution after demonstrators congregated in large numbers every day there until the nearly 30-year rule of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak came to an end just over two years ago.

While still drawing huge crowds, Tahrir Square has come to be known for something more ignominious since those heady days of revolution – rampant sexual harassment, physical abuse, rape and even genital cutting.

Some activists describe the assaults on mainly female demonstrators as a plague that was present long before the uprising began but that has become more violent as marches for democracy continue.

CBS correspondent Lara Logan’s account of an attack by a mob while reporting live from the square in February 2011 revealed to the world the dangers posed to women who take to the streets in Egypt and other Arab Spring countries.

Logan, who entered the square shortly after Mubarak announced his resignation, was separated from her crew and stripped and beaten by a group of men.

“I didn’t even know that they were beating me with flagpoles and sticks. All I could feel was their hands raping me over and over and over again,” she said two weeks after the attack during a segment of ‘60 Minutes’.

Despite bringing greater visibility to the problem, the attacks continue.

State-backed “rape squads” stalked women to deter them from participating in protests marking the second anniversary of the start of the revolution, according to Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment, a Cairo-based volunteer group that dispatches medical assistance to victims trapped in the crowds at Tahrir.Steady accounts of sexual abuse haven’t kept women away from the iconic meeting place, however.

"Many women were attacked and some severely beaten at the violent clashes in December. The next day, many appeared on liberal media political talk shows, bruises, black eyes and all," said Nahla Samaha, an Egyptian activist in Cairo.

Tech-minded activists are creating tools to help women navigate the risks of continued participation as demonstrators shape a new political paradigm in Egypt.

Harassmap.org uses crowdsourcing to map anonymous SMS and email reports of sexual harassment, marked with color-coded symbols to designate the type of attack – from catcalls to rape – in real time.

Each report receives an automatic response for victims, telling them where to go for free legal aid or psychological counseling, how to file a police report and where to learn self-defense methods.

The volunteer initiative was co-founded in 2010 by American NGO worker Rebecca Chiao, who was motivated by her own experiences of harassment since moving to Egypt in 2004, which she describes as “a daily challenge.”

The site’s map of Cairo is covered with symbols marking the nearly 800 incidents that have been reported since the uprising began in January 2011.

“We hope to make sexual harassment unacceptable and reestablish social consequences for harassers, ” Chiao said in a TEDx talk last year.

Using the hash tag #EndSH, Harassmap and other organizations are encouraging victims to tell their stories over social networks in a campaign to make Egyptians less tolerant of sexual harassment and less inclined to blame victims.

Frustrated by the lack of police protection, a citizen patrol group responds to Tweets for help to@TahrirBodyguard by dispatching uniformed volunteers into the crowds. Over Twitter, the group is calling for the passage of a law to prosecute assailants and protect victims.

Conservative Islamist leaders in Cairo have suggested instead that protesters demonstrate only in areas designated for women, an idea Samaha thinks is unlikely to sit well with female activists.

“While there are cases of sexual harassment of varying degrees, women of all ages, socioeconomic and educational backgrounds are fearless, ballsy and intrepid, never shying from harm’s way.”