Gender Inequality: Rapes in Tahrir Square, Cairo

The recent agitations in Cairo is a pointer to the vulnerability of women in society. I am all for rights of women, but it requires men to enforce them and in case men do not do it, what happens next ? Th recent demonstrations in Tahrir Square are a pointer to the way some men think. In agitations against Mohammad Morsi many women came out to protest.Egyptian civil rights activists say that at least 91 women were sexually assaulted or raped in Tharir Square during protests, which began last Sunday. The men who did it were Islamist, who perhaps wanted to teach a lesson to the women for opposing Morsi. Maybe it was plain sexual urge. The fact is nearly a 100 women were grabbed from the crowd and their burkhas and Hijabs stripped followed by their clothes and publicly raped in front of onlookers. One woman recounted her horror when for almost an hour she was publicly gang raped

The assailants operated in a climate of impunity – encouraged by religious zealots within the government who had called female protesters whores and who had blamed rape victims for not staying home. It is even believed that the gangs were paid by the Muslim Brotherhood. There are reports when some men could not immediately get the jeans of they slit the jeans with their knives. It's all very sad and one wonders how the women can be the equal of man. Finally it is good that Morsi is overthrown, as he was taking Egypt backwards.Morsi’s government had moved to deny women the right to right to seek a divorce under Islam, supported female circumcision, sacked women in top government jobs and tried to lower the age of consent for girls to marry from 18 to nine. God save Egypt !