Human Rights of Women
Source: i24 News
Egypt launched its first feminist comic-strip magazine, the London-based al -Sharq al-Awsat reported Friday.
The magazine, called al-Shakmagiya, aims to break the silence about taboo topics in society and is produced by the Nazra for Feminist Studies. Nazra for Feminist Studies is an NGO which works towards raising awareness of gender issues in both the private and public spheres as well as trying to establish a vibrant feminist movement in Egypt.
al-Shakmagiya will focus on gender-based violence and women's rights and will be issued quarterly. The first issue will focus on sexual harassment and violence against women.
"Al-Shakmagiya is different from all other comics in Egypt because it pertains to women's affairs and the daily events here," Makhlouf, a cartoonist told al -Sharq al-Awsat.
"One of my caricatures was published in the first issue; it was a compilation of pictorial stories and caricatures," he added.
Women in Egypt suffer from widespread gender-based violence.
According to a joint report published by a UN agency, the Empowerment of Women, Egypt's Demographic Center and the National Planning Institute in 2013, 99.3 percent of Egyptian women who were surveyed said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment.
In the 2014 report on Egypt by Human Rights Watch, Egyptian groups reported at least 19 cases of mob sexual assaults in January alone. Women's rights groups confirmed to Human Rights Watch that in June and July of 2014, 186 sexual attacks on women occurred in Cairo's Tahrir Square over one week.
The National Council for Women of Egypt recently conducted a study which found that 62.2% of the women studied said they had been subjected to psychological violence by their husbands.
While Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has vowed to crack down on sexual assaults and harassment, Human Rights Watch's report states that "the government's response has typically been to downplay the extent of the problem or to seek to address it through legislative reform alone.
There is no law criminalizing domestic violence specifically. Other forms of violence against women, including child marriage and female genital mutilation continued to take place in some areas, despite laws prohibiting them. Personal status laws in Egypt continue to discriminate against women in relation to marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance."