Press Release about Launching “Support is More Important” Campaign

Press Release

Tadwein for Gender Studies and Love Matters launched a digital campaign aimed at raising awareness about the importance of providing psychological, societal, and legal support to female victims of sexual assault, thereby believing in the important role that social media currently plays in disseminating information and influencing public opinion, especially among the youth.

Amel Fahmy, Director of Tadwein for Gender Studies, stated that in the joint campaign with Love Matters, support was chosen as a focus because of what was mentioned in the testimonies of many victims of sexual assaults about the shortcomings in family, community, and legal support mechanisms, and the difficulties in reporting crimes related to sexual violence, which ultimately leads to the impunity deserved by the criminals who committed these crimes.

Recent months have witnessed many cases of sexual assault, which sparked an unprecedented movement on social media, and included a large number of testimonies of women who had been subjected to sexual violence over the years but were unable to report or disclose what they were exposed to. At the top of those cases is the “Fairmont case” and the case of “Ahmed Bassam Zaki”, who is accused of assaulting and sexually blackmailing a number of girls.

Love Matters and Tadwein have been paying attention to issues related to sexual assault in general for years, said Ramy Metwally, Director of Love Matters. By working on such an issue, he explained that “it became clear that the impunity of those who commit these crimes from societal punishment legal support is a major reason for its widespread spread. Through #Support_is_the_most_important campaign we seek to encourage all parties surrounding victims and survivors of sexual assaults to provide them with all possible means of support, whether psychological, family, legal, or medical support.”

The campaign was prepared using the means of scientific research to collect and analyze 658 testimonies published on social media by victims and survivors and analyze the information collected through an opinion questionnaire, which was published on Love Matters and Tadwein’s social media platforms. 5145 girls from all governorates of Egypt participated. There was also educational, readable, photographed, audio, and visual content aimed at raising awareness of violence and sexual assault and opening a constructive dialogue on how to provide support to those who are exposed to this heinous crime and reduce it in the future.

Finally, the campaign organizers expressed their hope that the efforts made in it would contribute to supporting victims and survivors of sexual violence and that the campaign would motivate the state to take more measures and commitments to support them and punish the perpetrators.