A Press Release about Launching “Support is More Important” Campaign

Love Matters and Tadwein Center for Gender Studies launch an online campaign under the slogan “Support is the most important” for victims of sexual assault

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#Support_ is_the_Most_Important is an online campaign to support victims of sexual assaults in Egypt.

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

Amel Fahmy, Director of Tadwein Center for Gender Studies, stated that choosing support as a focus in the joint campaign with Love Matters came due to 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 violence sexual abuse, which ultimately leads to the impunity that the criminals who committed these crimes deserve.

Recent months have witnessed many cases of sexual assault that 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, and he was unable to report or disclose what they were exposed to. At the top of these cases is the case known as 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, 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.