Workshops try and eliminate endemic domestic violence in Egypt

Activists and clergy in Egypt have joined forces in an attempt to cut back domestic violence, which is believed to affect around a 3rd of all women, not only in Egypt, but across the Middle East and North Africa.

The initiative was launched by the British-based broadcaster SAT-7 and marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women earlier this week.

Further motivation to take motion got here following the printed of an episode of Today Not Tomorrow, during which a girl was beaten to death by her husband. Following the printed, significant numbers of viewers sent in messages detailing their experiences of domestic violence.

The initiative involved workshops by therapists and a neighborhood priest, Father Girgis. 100 and fifty women took part within the workshops, which allowed them to each share their experiences and receive advice in a secure and faith-based environment.

Many said that domestic abuse was seen as a typical a part of their culture, adding that even churches often did little or nothing to take care of the issue attributable to the perception that it’s a personal matter.

One local woman said, “I told the priest about my problem. He said, ‘Be patient, that is your cross to bear.’ But why didn’t he say, ‘Bring him and let’s sit and talk, tell him what he’s doing unsuitable?’”

The programme also involved men, with attempts made to grasp the pressures they face that will result in violence and to encourage them to be “partners in change”.

The workshops were hosted as a part of SAT-7’s five-year Gender Equality and Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) project. Now in its fourth 12 months, the project goals to “help men and women, girls and boys experience the liberty to have, change and manifest an alternate belief equally, no matter their gender”. 

Project Lead, Maggie Morgan, said, “The query that we ask is: what’s the problem? What is the symptom? And we wish to go to that area; we wish to say: where does it hurt? And we go there.

“But with the give attention to freedom of faith and belief, what we’re attempting to do is go to the source and discover why these symptoms are happening. And one in every of the things that we try very hard to do is to vary the narrative, the way in which we predict.”