Harassment

Women demanding an end to sexual harassment were insulted
and shoved by men telling them that they should go home
where they belong. Tahrir Square, Cairo, March 8, 2011.

Today in La Vanguardia there was an article asking whether recent 'revolutions' were likely to bring about any improvement in the status or rights of women. As one protester complained to the journalist:

"We fought alongside men for this change and now they tell us 'it is not the right time' to talk about equality. If now isn't, when is?"

At the moment there is gender inequality in many societies, including our own. But the plight of women in some African and Middle Eastern countries is simply frightening and unacceptable: from cosmopolitan Cairo to rural Yemen there are women who walk in fear and live as shadows of their potential selves.

Perhaps now it is even more important that the international community pressures these emerging societies to make changes to their social structure that can, in the long run, only benefit each and every one of their citizens. 

Class project

Imagine that you are the Marketing Manager at Amnesty International’s Headquarters. You have been asked to draw-up (write, design, edit and layout) an information leaflet in English to:

• raise awareness of inequality, sexual harassment and abuse in Africa or the Middle East
• explain the negative effects of sexual harassment
• motivate people in the West to do something about it

For more information about your 800 – 1200 word English class project, click here. (You will have to scroll down the right-hand column.)

To make comments about issues such as genital mutilation, stoning of adulterers, exclusion of women from politics, wearing hijab, sexual harassment, or even to criticise this project as misrepresentative, misleading or misguided please click on comments below.