Outcry after burn attack on woman

Reports of a woman allegedly burned with an unidentified chemical mixture in downtown Cairo have been circulating online, in the latest account of public violence against women.

The attack came to light when 23-year-old Israa Mohamed wrote on Facebook Thursday that a well-dressed, 40-year-old man approached but didn’t touch her and walked away shortly after, telling her to wipe her pants.

She described feeling a burning sensation on her lower body half an hour later. Mohamed says that she initially couldn’t remove her pants due to the severity of her injuries. A doctor diagnosed her with first, second and third degree burns and speculated that the substance thrown on her was a mix of several caustic chemicals, she says.

Amal al-Mohandes of Nazra for Feminist Studies, which is involved in Mohamed's case, said that she's not the first victim of such an attack on Egypt’s streets.  Mohandes says that the lack of legal retribution and the social acceptance of violence against women have allowed the attacks to escalate to a new level of violence. 

"The impunity gives the message that you can do whatever you want, you can tamper with women's bodies and you won't be punished,” she says. “Violence against women has become normalized in society.”

Mohandes says that violence against women whether by state or non-state actors has been periodic.

In January 2005, police forces surrounded female journalists outside the Press Syndicate and harassed them. 

In 2011, women who were arrested at protests were subjected to virginity tests by the military police. And in late 2012, evidence increasingly emerged of escalating mob sexual attacks, which had already been occurring during 2011 protests.

Mohandes says that during the 30 June protests, the research center documented 186 cases of sexual harassment, including rape with the use of sharp objects. 

In October 2012, the murder of 18-year old Iman Mostafa in Assiut brought some attention to the extent of violence against women in the streets. The perpetrator shot her dead when she responded to his verbal harassment by spitting on him. 

Mohandes says that the violence of the attacks is indicative of a lack of acceptance of women in public spaces.  She adds that the government has failed to take any measures to fix the problem. 

The Egyptian penal code does not recognize harassment and only rape, defined as the full penetration of the victim is specified as a crime. Anything short of that can be prosecuted as indecent behavior, which is a misdemeanor. 

Mohandes says that the law has to recognize and penalize different types of harassment, including verbal. She adds that social awareness should be raised by, among other means, discussing the problem in school and university curricula. 

"As long as the social acceptance of violence against women continues, the public space will become narrower and narrower for women and [the problem] will keep escalating," Mohandes says. 

Mohamed agrees. She wrote the following on her Facebook page: “As long as we are not standing up against the attack on us and we are burying our heads in the sand like an ostrich, don’t be surprised when you find girls disfigured, killed and raped all the time. What’s happening now is a war against women, they want to make us stay in our houses or kill us. I don’t know how to advise women to take care of themselves and I can’t tell them to stay home, the problem is now bigger, it has become difficult to live in this country because it doesn’t respect its people.”