The Center for Women`s Research and Studies at the Faculty of Mass Communication, Cairo University, organized a symposium on Tuesday afternoon under the title "Egypt... and combating violence against women", under the auspices of Dr. Muhammad Othman Al-Khosht, President of Cairo University, and Dr. Hanan Gunaid, Dean of the Faculty, and support from Dr. Mohamed Sami Abdel Sadik, Vice President of the University for Community Service and Environmental Development, and the supervision of Dr. Thuraya Ahmed Al-Badawi, Director of the Center.
At the beginning Dr. Thuraya Al-Badawi, in her speech explained that today’s symposium comes from the importance of combating violence against women in all its forms and within the framework of the Egyptian state’s approach launched by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and his relentless call to protect Egyptian women and his launch of the Egyptian Women’s Year in appreciation of the role of women and the opposition to all practices violence against her.
The Director of Women`s Research and Studies Center said that the symposium comes within the celebrations of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, stressing that this opposition is a basis for the stability of society and support for comprehensive community development efforts, and that it requires discussing the phenomenon in all its aspects and exposure to forms of violence that vary between forms of verbal violence to non-verbal, and it is one of the forms of psychological, physical and sexual violence, as well as violence through direct interaction or through various electronic media.
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The activities included listening first to students’ views on societal issues, especially with regard to defining the concept of violence, its forms, and how to combat it, and defining the 16-day global campaign to combat violence against women and what Egyptian, Arab and international women have achieved, since the beginning of this campaign until now, where most of the students committed themselves to attending in orange colored clothes, which is adopted by the United Nations to express solidarity with the celebration of International Women`s Day, in addition to reviewing the state`s efforts to reduce this phenomenon through its governmental institutions and civil society, and the role of media, drama and soft power in general in combating violence against women, as well as students` exposure to psychological harm and social issues for women in society, and asking questions about mechanisms and controls to limit the phenomenon of psychological and societal abuse of women and the role of the media in that and how to address this problem from a legal point of view.
The students presented their vision on the need for the media to adopt awareness campaigns on women`s rights from childhood until puberty and the age of marriage, to combat forms of violence and their effects on society as a whole.
In her speech, Prof. Dr. Mona El-Hadidi, member of the Media Committee of the National Council for Women, said that today`s symposium, organized by the Women`s Research Center, is an effort in support of the directives of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and support for the efforts of the Egyptian state within the framework of a call directed to society as a whole to prevent violence in all its rejected forms and that confronting it is not the responsibility of women`s associations only, it is from all institutions, because society cannot be straight without both genders, men and women, and that the role of art and culture is necessary for the media to spread and raise awareness, as well as promote awareness of the legal aspect, as confronting the phenomenon of violence is a common phenomenon in the aspects of education, awareness-raising, and law, and that the matter begins with families’ rejection of wrong eastern customs and that the twenty-first century witnessed the preference of the family for male children, and that resisting the negative phenomena resulting from non-discrimination and lack of mercy requires more than issuing laws and gaining societal support for those laws, and the need to know the duties of women before addressing the aspect of their rights.
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Dr. El-Hadidi noted that traditional media and drama should adopt objective ideas and templates that discuss the phenomenon of violence, and limit the phenomenon of violence by strengthening the inculcation of values by confronting violence even with non-women, such as violence against living beings (animals), violence in inanimate objects, And the need to pay attention to ethical codes of conduct that combat the phenomenon of verbal violence and limit the use of words that call for behavior of harassment and violence against women, noting the existence of a hotline from the National Council for Women to receive complaints and to report incidents of violence.
In his speech, the engineer and artist, Mohamed Tharwat, said that the principle of the universe is justice between men and women, and that both are the origin of life, and the Egyptian woman is the basis for all the achievements of Egyptian history, as she is the maker of men, and that many forms of violence are practiced due to economic pressures that push the head of the family, who are men, to practice violence sometimes against women to force them to work, and the way to prevent these phenomena is through educating women and making them able to reach the choices of building a family in a healthy way and to choose the right spouse.
Tharwat stated that women are required to confront violence by carefully studying the situation of violence against women in different geographical areas in each governorate, warning that the phenomenon of divorce has become one of the widespread phenomena in Arab society, especially the Egyptian one, and women are required to limit the phenomenon of violence against them by examining what the man accepts as the other part and what is not accepted by him in order to prepare sound awareness because women may be a motive for men to practice violence with them, and to work on the need to prevent the phenomenon of illiteracy among members of society, in a way that contributes to media awareness efforts.
For his part, Counselor Alaa Al-Shimi, Undersecretary of the Women, Children and Human Rights Sector at the Ministry of Justice, said that violence against women records disastrous statistics, including that 85% of Internet users expressed their exposure to violence, 45% of them were subjected to sexual violence, and 26% were exposed to two or more forms of violence. Violence, according to the statistics of the National Council for Women, and 22.3% were subjected to psychological violence.
Counselor Al-Shimi noted that violence against women needs to be curbed because its repercussions threaten the survival of society, indicating that violence against women affects the woman`s family and sometimes leads them to fall into a crisis or crime, noting that violence against women is an old matter and not new, and that The Ministry of Justice has organized several awareness sessions to introduce women to ways to prevent extortion.
El-Shimy discussed the articles of the Cybercrime Law, in which the Egyptian constitution defines the form of electronic crime, especially on the social networking site, and that the Egyptian law is clear in this regard that the case of verbal harassment was a fine of 20,000 pounds and imprisonment for two years, and even imprisonment for five years.
Dr. Nahed Abdel Hamid, Director of the Hanager Cultural Forum at the Cairo Opera House, said that the media plays an educational role in eliminating violence, and that the crisis is faced with awareness by defining the types of violence and areas of resistance, and that the media must adopt the planned awareness methodology.
The director of the Hanager Forum indicated that societal culture is the way to inform women of their rights, and what is considered a crime against them when they are exposed to any form of violence, explaining that laws need comprehensive societal support. .

The activities of the symposium included an intervention by Prof. Dr. Awatif Abd al-Rahman, noting that the National Council for Women is one of the active entities in adopting the perspective of confronting violence against women, explaining that the ancient fathers were those who opposed forms of violence against women, which contributed to the models of women who proved their worth in obtaining university education and promotion in employment cadre within the country, calling for the involvement of men in contributing to the efforts to raise awareness of the campaigns to combat violence against women, which are held by the National Council for Women, and actively inviting them to its membership.