Emily Dyer’s report, Marginalising Egyptian Women, examines the role the post-Revolution Egyptian government played restricting women’s rights in the public sphere through sexual violence and political marginalisation.
The report’s findings are based on extensive first-hand interviews carried out by the report’s author Emily Dyer during her time in Cairo with leading Muslim Brotherhood politicians, women’s rights activists and NGO workers. The report looks as how Egypt’s first democratically elected government, led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), took steps to impose total control over women in public spaces, and finds that the state played an instrumental role in reversing women’s rights and restricting their roles in society.
Key findings include:
- The FJP blamed female victims of harassment, which played a major part in creating a culture acceptability surrounding sexual violence towards women
- Egyptian law and the constitution prevents sexual attackers from being successfully brought to justice
- The FJP attempted to exert control over women’s bodies through opposing the ban against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), wrongly justifying it as both a religious obligation and medical necessity
- The state launched a full-scale crackdown on women’s rights NGOs through stigmatisation, intimidation, divisive tactics and greater restrictions on their freedoms and activities
- Political participation among Egyptian women was forced to an all-time low– despite showing an increased appetite to participate in politics
- Female parliamentary representation sank from 10% under President Mubarak to 3% under President Morsi