In 2012, international media talked about collective rapes targeting women in the protests in Tahrir Square for the first time. In reaction, several civil groups, such as Tahrir Bodyguard, OpAntiSH and Basma, were created to protect women and establish actions to prevent rape during the protests. Three years later, they had to change their way of action, from emergency to sustainability, with more or less success.

The Egyptian revolution, from 2011 to 2014, seems to have brought together and strengthened civil initiatives against sexual harassment and for gender equality. “The feminist group called Nazra exists since 2005, and was working mainly on helping women to represent themselves in the 2010 parliamentary elections. But it became more active in 2011 as women started to be more involved in the public sphere,” Mahy Hassan, who is in charge of the Women Human Rights Defender Program in Nazra, told Al-Monitor.

“So we started a program based on human rights, gender and feminism, as well as coordinating with other anti-harassment groups to provide medical and legal assistance to the women who have been raped during protests,” she said.

Nazra activists documented around 500 sexual assaults and rapes — which were kept anonymous — in downtown Cairo between 2012 and 2014, and initiated a “feminist school” in 2013 and a 10-day workshop for the public and activists to learn about feminism, gender, stereotypes and violence.