AUC: Regional Universities Unite Against Sexual Harassment

By: Nouran Saleh and Nadine Samy
@nouranyasser162
@nadinesamy4

As a way of honouring April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month, AUC organised a day-long event on campus to discuss prevention strategies and safety measures.

The event featured multiple sessions and activities led by panelists who were AUC students, alumni, faculty and staff. The event also included representatives from other universities in Egypt and in the region. 

The first session of the event, “Universities Unite: Combating Harassment on Campus” featured representatives from AUC (including the Debate Society), the American University in Beirut (AUB), Ain Shams University and Cairo University, who discussed the mechanism for combating sexual harassment at their respective institutions. 

Reem El Mograby, Director and Title IX coordinator of the Office of Institutional Equity (OIE), said that they have recently launched “EthicsPoint”, a system that is widely used by multiple institutions and workplaces.

The system ensures anonymity for people who want to report sexual harassment or discrimination.

“Whenever you have a unit that addresses such sensitive complaints you need to continue to maintain the structure, the credibility and build a strong reputation among the members, and in order to do this we’re communicating and focusing a lot on having a strong communication channel with our community,” said El Mograby.

Following the prominent Ahmed Bassem Zaki case, which broke on social media in early summer 2020, the university wanted to reiterate its zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment and ensure that the AUC community is aware of the anti-harassment policies it has in place. 

This led to the implementation of the AUC SpeakUp initiative and the renaming of the Title IX office to the Office of Institutional Equity last summer. 

El Mograby told The Caravan that the Universities Unite event was important because it created an opportunity to have a conversation with other institutions that have similar anti-sexual harassment units or share common policies regarding  harassment and discrimination. 

“What was unique about this event is actually having students among the panel. This I think created room for students to share with us their message through communicating their concerns and suggestions,” added El Mograby. 

Hend El Helaly, director of the unit responsible for sexual harassment at Ain Shams University, shared the procedures and strategies that they use for handling reports. 

“When a person sends a complaint, first we have a committee that includes specialized people from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, forensic medicine, sociology … they meet with the person who filed the complaint, where they start a standardized checklist discussion to make sure the allegations are true,” said El Helaly. 

She explained that punitive measures at Ain Shams vary from those found guilty of sexual harassment being banned from student activities or being suspended for a period of time. 

Youssef Hashem, president of AUC’s Debate Society, told The Caravan that this event received much more media exposure and a bigger audience than the Debate Society’s recent “Unleash Your Voice”.

The debate competition was conducted last month and centred around the topic of whether the state or society had larger influence on the increase of sexual harassment cases.

“We had different Egyptian universities represented by their deans where they shared the experience of their community in dealing with that issue so, that helped in widening the range to think about solutions to the problem of sexual harassment in Egypt as whole not just in AUC,” added Hashem. 

Among the events featured throughout the day was a mini-production from the play Msh Zanbak. 

Nour El Captan, the playwright of Insah, one of the mini plays featured in Msh Zanbek, said that a sexual harassment incident might last minutes or even seconds, but it lasts a lifetime for the victim. 

She added that awareness must be raised on the issue of sexual harassment, especially through the arts.

“What I wanted to do is show how sexual harassment never moves away and this was the main point of the play. This is an issue we needed to talk about and as a country, we need repercussions. People face punishments depending on who they are and this shouldn’t be the case,” El Captan said. 

Omar Samra, an AUC alumnus and adventurer, believes that the first step in stopping sexual harassment is understanding the different imbalances between men and women.

“Men have to acknowledge that they do not always understand, and that they have to leave space for listening. Listening is the starting point and everyone can start by educating his/her family first,” Samra said. 

But Gala El Hadidi, an AUC alumna and a professional opera singer, had a different view on sexual harassment. She emphasized that women should control their feelings before their feelings control them; people should take control over their lives and stand up for what they believe in. 

“Harassment is an issue, but it is up to you to choose whether to be a victim or not. Look at the harasser in the eye and show him you’re not scared; everyone has the choice of acting positive about it, and this allows you to help others,” El Hadidi said.