Title - The Campaign (2017)                                                                Director - Jenny Montasir

Runtime - 16:38:01                                                                Email - jennymontasir@gmail.com

 

 

Transcript

 

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There's an example from watching a documentary film on television.

 

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Imagine a zebra is standing.

 

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There is a lion standing far away and preparing to go and attack it.

 

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I guess we all get the feeling of the zebra, we get scared and we want to run.

 

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You leave your house and it's a new day, a happy day.

 

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You're going to your work, you're going to your university.

 

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You're happy...then you go back home hating your life.

 

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99.3% of women in Egypt have been subjected to some form of sexual harassment.

 

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In 2010, an initiative called HarassMap began collecting reports of harassment.

 

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Men stand around the square every night and catcall…

 

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Profane comments and staring.

 

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Surprised by a guy touching me with all his body.

 

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A guy showed me his penis in the middle of the street.

 

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Men followed me and took photos of me.

 

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Pervert keeps calling and making weird sounds.

 

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But something bigger needed to be done.

 

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The Campaign

 

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CAIRO

 

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Twenty years ago maybe, people would be a bit more subtle in sexually harassing women in public spaces for example. Now it happens in broad daylight, amongst people, and generally people turn a blind eye and they don't intervene and they don't object.

 

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EBA’A EL-TAMAMI

Former Marketing & Communications Unit Head, HarassMap

 

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HARASSMAP

Main Office

 

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Sexual harassment in Egypt is very socially acceptable.

 

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I can’t help myself.

 

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The reasons that have led it to being socially acceptable is how people see it - as an act that is not a crime, that is excusable in one way or another, and that it's cool to harass and that it's manly to harass and it's powerful to harass successfully.

 

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HarassMap trains individuals and institutions to run anti-harassment outreach campaigns in their own communities across Egypt.

 

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In 2013, they also began developing an unprecedented media campaign designed to reach a mass audience.

 

 

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The goal of the campaign was to encourage bystanders who witness harassment

to intervene.

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J. WALTER THOMPSON

Advertising Agency

 

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When we thought about it...Egyptians, by nature, are very passive.

 

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After two revolutions, we're starting to feel like we can say something…we can act, we can say no.

 

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RAMI ELKERDANI

Associate Creative Director, JWT Cairo

 

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But when it comes to the moment of harassment, we do nothing.

 

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So we decided to capture this exact moment and magnify it.

 

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Basically you're going to see people in the bus or metro. A man is harassing a woman, and the people around them are not doing anything about it. You're looking at someone listening to music, and he's not doing anything. Another guy opens his newspaper as if he's not seeing anything. Another is acting unaware and contemplating the ceiling.

 

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Have you counted three people? No, there are four..because you are the fourth person who's playing dumb.

 

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I just think it needs to be combined with something that takes it further.

 

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How can we make it so the person will think...“If do this in my neighborhood or in front of my friends..they'll think that I'm strong, that I'm cool.”

 

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“I'm the one who intervenes and protects, and stops the harassment. I'm the person that everyone should look up to.”

 

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And not necessarily on a moral basis. Which is the problem now...since the revolution,

people don't care about ethics. They don't care about morals—who gives a fuck? And everyone has too many other priorities.

 

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There's no way we're going to say that...we're going to come out even with

an extremely successful campaign, and having resolved the issue,

or having done anything outstanding.

 

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MOHAMMED SABRY

Managing Director, JWT Cairo

 

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What we would like to do is to just agree that...we're shedding light on the subject,

and we're starting the conversation.

 

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On June 5, 2014, interim president Adly Mansour issued Egypt's first law to directly

define and criminalize sexual harassment.

 

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Good evening, Samar. And congratulations to Egypt and all Egyptians. Please tell us how people are celebrating in Tahrir.

 

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June 8, 2014

 

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On this extraordinary day, on this crucial day in Egypt's history...as described by the [new] president Abdelfattah al-Sisi.

 

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But we have to mention that we had some harassment cases, individual cases of harassment...

 

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[Anchor: They're happy!]

 

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[Anchor: The people are having fun!]

 

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Right now within the political context of course there is an opportunity because there is some momentum.

 

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A video of a girl being mob sexually assaulted in Tahrir spread virally and created a lot of controversy.

 

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This happened so many times in the past, at least 250 cases of mob sexual assault and rap in Tahrir alone, in 2013 alone

 

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Sexual assault in Tahrir Square June 30, 2013

 

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[The harasser is a coward dog. Never call him a human.]

 

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[Raise your sons well instead of blaming your daughters.]

 

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[I'm a girl. I'm a human. I'm free.]

 

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[I want to walk in the street without fear. Is that possible? #ExecuteTheHarasser]

 

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[President el-Sisi visits Tahrir Square harassment victim at a military hospital]

 

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In Tahrir there are cameras, and the video of me is online. And my daughter keeps seeing it every day and she has a breakdown.

 

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I apologize to you. But we as a state...we won't allow this to happen again. And we'll have very strict procedures, and the law will be strictly enforced.

 

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Obviously this is not sexual harassment, you’re talking about mob rape and assault. But when people see assault they are reminded of harassment and the whole conversation opens up. So it's an interesting time to do this. So I'm hoping to launch the campaign as soon as possible and as soon as I'm able to get sponsors to fund the airtime for the campaign.

 

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One Year Later

 

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I’m Noora. So I’m originally from Sweden but I’ve been living in Egypt for three years now.

 

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The first year I was here I spend a lot of time moving around in the streets, I was doing research.

 

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I was harassed a lot. And then every time I talk to someone and I tell them I’m working for HarassMap - women - they’re like oh my God and this and this happened to me and this and this and they always have so many stories.

 

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NOORA FLINKMAN

Marketing & Communications Unit Head, HarassMap

 

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When Eba’s left the team - she was the one with all of the expertise, so when she left we stalled for a very long time.

 

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Everything was completely new for all of us. But somehow we still managed to figure things out.

 

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Today we are shooting our TV ad for the campaign that we'll be launching in a couple weeks.

 

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We started working on the campaign two years ago.

 

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 since the beginning of 2015 things have actually started rolling and we had an art director on board who came up with the creative concept, who set up the strategy and then contacted a production house and the director that he wanted to work with and then everything came together like kind of quickly in the last two months.

 

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TOTAL NUMBER OF ADS - 3 TV + 1 RADIO

PRODUCTION AND AIRTIME BUDGET - $102,000

PAID FOR BY - DONORS AND CROWDFUNDING

 

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While working on the campaign, we had to put aside all artistic ideas.

 

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It needs to be accessible, so that anyone from any class or way of thinking

will get the idea from it.

 

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AHMAD ABDALLA

Director

 

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TV AD 1

HarassMap

 

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81% of harassment cases happen in public transportation.

 

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All forms of harassment are a crime, and the punishment is one year in jail.

 

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The harasser is a criminal: by words, with gestures, with actions.

 

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We’ve established that sexual harassment is a crime and the phase two of the campaign will establish sexual harassment as something unacceptable that we should not just  tolerate and let pass by. We should actually intervene.

 

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Tarek? Did you like that take?

 

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This is happening to you and you're on your own. You take out the key. You're not concentrating, the key will fall.

 

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His name is Khaled Sobhy. One day, I was going to work early in the morning. I can usually handle anything, and I'm not scared to speak up for myself. This time I was all alone on a small street, and he kept bothering me. And I was really...afraid.

 

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TV AD 2

HarassMap

 

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I felt like the small distance from home to the car was longer than ever.

 

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If not for Sobhy and his wife, I don't know what he could have done.

 

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Staying silent towards the harasser makes you complicit to a crime. Don't help him, help her. Harassment is punishable by imprisonment.

 

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We didn’t go with the first idea where we’re trying to have much more of a positive approach, where we make standing up to sexual harassment cool.

 

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Who wants to see one of the ads we're going to publish on TV?

 

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People don’t care too much about being nice, or kind of what’s morally right or wrong. So we’re relying quite heavily on the law.

 

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TV AD 3

HarassMap

 

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To be punished by a prison sentence no less than six months, and a fine no less than 3000 pounds...

 

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What seems to be the only thing that really work is kind of like a bit of authority, someone tells you this is it and there's no discussion. You listen.

 

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I mean this is unfortunately the situation that we're living in - this kind of idea that whatever the government says we will listen and it's something very serious and the general public will take it very seriously.

 

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TV & RADIO CAMPAIGN RUN TIME - 10 DAYS

ONLINE CAMPAIGN RUN TIME - 1 MONTH

 

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Five seconds!

 

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We're going live in 3, 2, 1.

 

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Now we've understood: six months in prison, a 3000 pound fine.

 

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That is the law...

 

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[Have you seen an ad called “The Harasser is a Criminal”?]

 

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No, frankly I've not noticed them at all.

 

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No.

 

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Yes. A lot.

[Do you remember what any of the ads said?]

Not really. Not exactly.

 

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There was a girl on the street going to her car, and there was someone following her.

 

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It's really positive. It could change people's conceptions when it comes to harassment.

 

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Maybe it could be effective among the youth...but it should increase. They should show them in all commercial breaks, like how the ads for film and soap operas play in every bulletin we're getting. Not just like it's here for a moment, then it vanishes.

 

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It's a strong message that the punishment is jail, a lot of people don't know that.

 

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[What do you think of the ad that says you should intervene?]

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If you look at most of Egypt, you'll find 3/4 living in slums and 1/4 quite affluent. Those 3/4 who live in the slums...would see such a thing on TV and make fun of it.

 

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It shouldn't just be about a girl who drives a car. What about the girls on the street walking

to university or high school, for example.

 

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I remember that I personally stood up against harassers. There was one time they actually

beat me up.

 

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Some people wouldn't give a damn about six months in prison...or a few thousand pounds. All in all, it's about the person himself, his own culture and humanity. I don't think this law could deter anyone from doing such a thing.

 

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[Do you think this punishment could act as a deterrence for harassment?]

Of course it could.

[What harassment?!]

[Girls are walking around naked.]

Stop that. Stop, stop.

Harassment is against any man's will!

[Come, we can take your opinion.]

 

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Do you think if a girl was walking respectfully in the street, anyone would harass her?

[Why are you shouting? Take it easy.]

I want to say my opinion. In the old rural proverbial we used to say, “If she's open to you, then you take it.” C'mon, people. This country needs to straighten up.

 

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Even if there is a policeman or soldier next to me, I'm not sure I can talk to them. Most of them are part of the problem. I can't call on someone who is also harassing me. As for me, I'll just shout and walk away. I wouldn't use the law.

 

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The big purpose of this campaign was to reach the people we don’t normally reach through social media or on the streets where our volunteers go out.

 

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AD VIEWS ON TV - 255, 910

AD VIEWS ONLINE - 5,000,000+

 

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Although there’s like a lot of work happening in Egypt on sexual harassment, no one has done this before.

 

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I think it does make a difference when people see this issue being discussed in this way, also in their living rooms.

 

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We would have done a lot more if we had a lot more money. Definitely we would have wanted to air more.

 

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I think this campaign plays an important role, but it’s still like a small little thing in this huge problem that we’re having, so we’ll see.

 

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In 2017, tougher penalties for sexual harassment were proposed in the Egyptian parliament.

 

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With an uncooperative police and judicial system, bystanders who are unwilling to act as witnesses, and the victim's fear of social stigma for reporting the crime, Egypt's sexual harassment law is rarely enforced.

 

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HarassMap continues to use online and on the ground campaigns to promote zero-tolerance of sexual harassment in Egypt.

 

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Credits, Thank Yous, Copyright