Cette publication est également disponible en :
Eight years after experiencing sexual harassment, Egyptian art critic Manar Khaled decided to share her testimony about an incident in which she says she was harassed after being lured to the home of (A.G.) under the pretext of helping him prepare for travel.
Manar chose to only reveal the initials of the harasser’s name. In a Facebook post, she explains why she was withholding his identity: “I’m not afraid, not of you or of him, but all the evidence I have is, unfortunately, my story, which happened years ago. The only proof I have is my memory, which has not yet moved past it.” Manar was unable to take legal action against him because nearly eight years had passed since the incident.
Though she did not disclose his name, her testimony received widespread media attention and encouraged other girls and women to share similar experiences they had gone through.
According to Manar’s account, (A.G.) was offering training workshops for theater students and leveraged his network of connections within artistic circles to gain trust and build relationships with young women, despite having no clearly defined professional status or official position in the field.
“He used his cultural connections to gain the trust of young women or newcomers to the field by offering gifts, asking about details of our personal lives, and then pressuring us to accept financial help or small job opportunities, creating a sense of dependency or gratitude toward him,” Manar says. “Sometimes, if we refused his help, he would invent fake work opportunities as a pretext to pay us.”
“He would approach younger women, most of whom were in psychologically vulnerable situations, dealing with family conflict, or lacking emotional support at home.”
Safe spaces: A cover for exploitation
Meanwhile, in late February of this year, several testimonies circulated against individuals in human rights and civil society circles, including lawyers and activists, most notably Mohamed Taher, under the hashtag #DidYouExposeAHarasserToday. Mohamed Taher presents himself as a supporter of young women seeking independence from abusive families, collaborating with activists, lawyers, and mental health professionals to provide safe shelters and emotional support spaces. He is also the founder of a cultural initiative that offers psychological support to people who have experienced violence or emotional neglect.
Independent feminist activist Aya AbdelHamed received dozens of testimonies from girls and women who chose to share their stories with her, a testament to the trust she has earned within Egyptian feminist and human rights circles. Aya later published these testimonies on her personal account after anonymizing the identities of the women involved.
The allegations against Mohamed Taher subsequently entered the judicial sphere. Egyptian authorities arrested him, and local media reported that prosecutors confronted him with accusations of sexual assault and the operation of an unlicensed for-profit institution. Media outlets also circulated reports claiming that he had confessed to several of the alleged offenses. The case, however, remains subject to ongoing official investigations and legal proceedings.
“These testimonies revealed a repeated and systematic pattern of grooming and exploitation,” Aya says. “He would approach younger women, most of whom were in psychologically vulnerable situations, dealing with family conflict, or lacking emotional support at home. According to these testimonies, he would enter their lives as a supportive friend and emotional confidant, someone they could trust and turn to in difficult times, before later luring some of them to his home during their moments of psychological vulnerability.”
According to the Ohio State University, grooming is a gradual process in which the perpetrator gains the victim’s trust by presenting himself as loving or supportive, assessing her needs and vulnerabilities, and offering gifts and attention to create emotional attachment and dependence. Over time, he encourages her to distance herself from family, making her isolated and psychologically or financially reliant on him, thus facilitating control and exploitation.
The Did You Expose a Harasser Today? campaign is considered an extension of the global #MeToo movement, the feminist movement that swept across social media in 2017 and raised awareness about sexual harassment and assault, especially in workplaces. The movement sought to highlight the alarming prevalence of harassment, encourage victims to break their silence and share their stories, and call for perpetrators to be held accountable.
The testimonies were not limited to those received by Aya AbdelHamed. Other women anonymously shared their stories with activists, revealing that the incidents went beyond harassment and also included rape, leading to the spread of the hashtag #DidYouExposeARapistToday alongside the testimonies. This underscored the need for safe legal pathways through which women and girls can report sexual harassment and sexual violence.
As many of the accused continue to shield themselves with legitimacy derived from their positions within human rights or cultural circles, one question repeatedly emerges in public discourse: Where do women go?
Where do women go? Alternative justice and safe havens
Rania Rashwan left her village in the Faiyum Governorate in 2021 to escape the violence she faced for refusing to wear the hijab. After arriving in Cairo, she was subjected to repeated abuse and exploitation by individuals who either claimed affiliation with human rights work or were actively involved in it. “I didn’t know that when I left my struggles behind and went to Cairo, the city wouldn’t open its arms to me—that there would be another circle ready to exploit and harm you under the guise of helping,” Rania says. “Girls who escape violence end up facing even harsher violence within circles that are supposed to be safe havens for them.”
As many of the accused continue to shield themselves with legitimacy derived from their positions within human rights or cultural circles, one question repeatedly emerges in public discourse: Where do women go?
Lamia Lotfi, founder of the Rural Women’s Initiative, believes that these cases reflect a broader structural problem: the lack of safe and specialized institutional spaces capable of providing professional support. She explains that some individuals may become unofficial havens for women and girls.
According to Lotfi, she was not personally close to Mohamed Taher, and their first interaction occurred while following the case of a girl who had escaped a forced customary marriage. Lotfi says she went to assist the girl at the police station and found him there, offering support as well.
She adds that she noticed the girl had become deeply emotionally attached to him, so she advised him to stop interacting with her and allow the organization to handle the case, since he was not a trained specialist and his presence in such circumstances could lead to unhealthy emotional attachment or psychological dependence.
According to the report on Violence Against Women and Girls in Egypt for the First Half of 2025, issued by the Edraak Foundation for Development and Equality, 122 cases of sexual harassment and 10 documented rape cases were recorded, in addition to attempted rape incidents and 62 cases of sexual assault against children, including the rape of underage girls. These figures reflect the broad scope and varied forms of sexual violence, indicating that the circulating testimonies are not isolated incidents but part of a wider context supported by documented data. The report also notes that some crimes were accompanied by attempts to pressure, threaten, or defame women in order to prevent them from reporting.
Is there real accountability?
Calls have intensified for independent investigations within certain human rights and cultural institutions and circles into the individuals named in testimonies circulating under recent hashtags, in an effort to ensure accountability and create safer pathways for women who wish to report abuse.
The circulating testimonies are not isolated incidents but part of a wider context supported by documented data.
At the same time, these calls raise questions about the extent to which non-judicial institutions are capable of conducting independent and impartial investigations, particularly when the accused belong to the same professional networks as those overseeing the process.
In September of last year, the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights (ECWR)—one of the country’s leading feminist human rights organizations—issued a statement announcing the results of an internal investigation committee formed after one young woman accused one of the organization’s lawyers of harassing her.
The ECWR published the committee’s decision, which included the following statement:
“The committee concluded that the incident involving the sending of a sexually explicit image did indeed occur. However, the committee considers this to be an act that could have been committed accidentally. Since the act appears to lean toward being non-deliberate, an unintended mistake, the measures taken should not exceed the bounds appropriate for dealing with an unintentional act.”
The statement sparked widespread criticism from human rights advocates and activists, many of whom viewed the committee’s findings as overly lenient toward the complaint and inconsistent with the role expected of a leading feminist organization. The controversy reignited debate over the limitations of internal investigative committees and their ability to deliver justice and accountability in cases involving sexual violence outside traditional judicial frameworks.
