Was Marwan Pablo’s Concert An Opportunity For Mass Sexual Harassment?
After having retired for a year, the famous Egyptian rapper, Marwan Pablo made his official comeback on October the 1st. He’d dropped a song back in February earlier this year and it boomed. Then on March the 29th, his album was released. Since then, people have been waiting for more music from him, so when he announced that there will be a concert in October, people raced to book it. And It. Went. Horribly.
Reportedly, there was pickpocketing, drug use, and plenty of sexual harassment.
The three tiers, Gold, VIP, and Silver were crossed. So aside from the fact that people literally crossed boundaries, jumping from Silver to Gold or VIP, women were sexually harassed. To get a glimpse of what was really happening, check out this video…
On Sexual Harrassment
A Women’s Rights Activist, Sabah Khodir took to Instagram to share reports that she received from women about their experience of sexual harassment in the concert.
Sabah announced in a post that Marwan Pablo’s concert was a concert for mass sexual harassment. She reported that almost all girls who went were harassed and got their hair pulled. It was also reported that the security took bribes to not do their job. It was disorganized and dangerous with more sexual harassment than music. Check out her post from Instagram below.
Many people have responded to that post, commenting and telling their stories, standing in solidarity with the victims, or invalidating the reports and shaming women, or mainly joking.
Here are some of the comments and testimonies from women:
The famous page that supports victims of any kind of violence and specifically women who are victims of sexual harassment, Speak Up, showed their support as well. A young boy joked on Facebook about one comment a girl wrote on Sabah’s Instagram post. Speak Up commented on that in a post, wondering, “why would someone laugh about a girl getting sexually harassed? Unless he’s a harasser himself?”
How long do you think this will go on? It’s 2021 and Egypt has been improving in many aspects. With an upgraded educational system, upgraded roads, and women acquiring some of their basic human rights. Yet, there’s still sexual harassment in every city in Egypt; in buses, streets, schools, universities, and concerts.
Shockingly, some of the comments on Sabah’s post were attacking the women and girls for going somewhere that crowded! Some people commented and blamed them for not expecting to get harassed, they even accused them of asking for it due to the way they’re dressed!
It looks like no matter how far we go, there will always be some who are left behind. And the victims accumulate.
