Women in Egypt
However, legal inequality persists, with current laws differentiating significantly between women and men in the spheres of marriage and divorce.
Women have traditionally been preoccupied with household tasks and child rearing and have rarely had opportunities for contact with men outside the family.
[10] Though not many women have acted as rulers in Egyptian society, they have been considered to be equal among men in status as well as legal opportunities.
Women were shown to be allowed the opportunity to take part in the economy, such as their role as merchants, as it happened later in the Roman Empire, specially among the lower classes.
[11] To limit women's contact with men as tradition, practices such as veiling and gender segregation at schools, work, and recreation have become common.
Furthermore, lower-class families, especially in Upper-Egypt, have tended to withdraw females from school as they reached puberty to minimize their interaction with males.
Lower-class men frequently preferred marriage to women who had been secluded rather than to those who had worked or attended secondary school.
Women were guaranteed the right to vote and equality of opportunity was explicitly stated in the 1956 Egyptian constitution, forbidding gender-based discrimination.
Labor laws were changed to ensure women's standing in the work force and maternity leave was legally protected.
[13] A 2010 Pew Research Center poll showed that 45% of Egyptian men and 76% of women supported gender equality.
[15] Polls taken in 2010 and 2011 show that 39% considered gender equality "very important" to Egypt's future post-revolution and 54% of Egyptians supported sex segregation in the workplace.
In the public sector women are more protected with labor rights that secure their position and provide benefits such as maternity leave.
[34] In December 2011, the Cairo Administrative court ruled that forced virginity tests on females in military prisons were illegal.
[36] The deputy Middle East director at HRW said that the attacks were "holding women back from participating fully in the public life of Egypt at a critical point in the country's development.
"[36] On 4 June 2013, a law criminalizing sexual harassment for the first time in modern Egyptian history was approved by then interim president, Adly Mansour.
[37] The 2014 Cairo hotel gang rape case in which a young woman was drugged and raped by a group of young men from wealthy families attracted wide social media and mainstream media attention, leading to the extradition of three of the accused men from Lebanon back to Egypt in September 2020.
[38] In 2020 a social media campaign "Assault Police" was launched so that women could anonymously draw attention to perpetrators of sexual violence.
[39] The account was started by Nadeen Ashraf who wanted to enable women to have a voice and make their concerns heard.
[41] In August 2021, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ratified law amendments to tighten the imprisonment term and the fine imposed on sexual harassment.
[42] However, Sisi's recent ratification is dismissed in a 2022 court case against famous Egyptian actor Shady Khalaf, who was charged with only 3 years of prison sentencing for his sexual assault and attempted rapes on "seven women at an acting workshop.
"[43][44] Honor killings take place in Egypt relatively frequently, due to reasons such as a woman meeting an unrelated man, even if this is only an allegation; or adultery (real or suspected).
[53] A 17-year-old girl died on 29 May 2017, reportedly from hemorrhaging, following female genital mutilation (FGM) at a private hospital in Suez Governorate.
Four people faced trial on charges of causing lethal injury and FGM, including the girl's mother and medical staff as per an Amnesty 2016/2017 report.
Police forces "entraped" members of the community through "social networking sites and dating applications" and gave them "harsh prison sentences."
The detainees were a subject of "verbal and physical abuse" by police, and were given "forced anal exams" and "virginity tests."
Egypt's laws pertaining to marriage and divorce have changed over the years, however they have generally favored the social position of men, although reform continues.
Dr. Aisha Ratib became Minister of Social Affairs and in November the following revisions were suggested and implemented: The government amended the laws relating to personal status in 1979.
The amendments, which became known as the "women's rights law," were in the form of a presidential decree and subsequently approved by the People's Assembly.
The leading orthodox Islamic clergy endorsed these amendments, but Islamist groups opposed them as state infringements of religious precepts and campaigned for their repeal.
The amendments stated that polygamy was legally harmful to a first wife and entitled her to sue for divorce within a year after learning of her husband's second marriage.
