12/11/21, 3:34 PM #MosqueMeToo Gives Muslim Women A Voice About Sexual Misconduct At Mecca : Goats and Soda : NPR

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WOMEN & GIRLS

#MosqueMeToo Gives Muslim Women A Voice

About Sexual Misconduct At Mecca
February 26, 2018 · 1:57 PM ET

MALAKA GHARIB

Muslims circle the Kaaba, located in the Great Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, as part of their Islamic pilgrimage.
Rasoul Ali/Getty Images

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Dressed in a hijab and covered from head to toe, she felt something. Someone — a
man — had grabbed onto her butt and would not let go.

The Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, called hajj, was supposed to be the
holiest moment of Mona Eltahawy's life. When she was 15, she journeyed there with
her family. The magnificence of the Great Mosque had taken her breath away. But that
man turned the trip into a nightmare.

Instead of telling the authorities, the young Eltahawy simply burst into tears.

"Who wants to talk about sexual assault at a holy place? No one would believe it," she
says, recalling the encounter, which took place in 1982.

In early February, Eltahawy, an Egyptian-American activist and journalist and the

author of Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual
Revolution, shared this story on Twitter. It was in response to a viral Facebook post by
a Pakistani woman who shared her own experience of being sexually assaulted at hajj.
The post inspired an outpouring of similar testimonies from Muslim women around
the world.

Mona Eltahawy
@monaeltahawy

I am glad to see women are speaking out about

being sexually harassed during Hajj. Several years
ago, i shared my own experience with sexual assault
during the pilgrimage (see following tweets)
stepfeed.com/women-are-spea… h/t @jwildeboer
#MeToo

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Women are speaking out about being sexually harassed during …

"My entire experience at the holy city is overshadowed by this
horrible incident."
stepfeed.com

4:11 AM · Feb 6, 2018

Read the full conversation on Twitter

2.6K Reply Share this Tweet

Read 122 replies

For unknown reasons, the post was removed from Facebook, but the conversation
continued on a tweet posted by Eltahawy. Her tweet was shared more than 2,500
times and elicited hundreds more stories. She then suggested that women start using
the hashtag #MosqueMeToo to organize the discussion.

Mona Eltahawy
@monaeltahawy

I have shared my experience of being sexually

assaulted during Haj in 1982 when I was 15 in the
hope that it will help fellow Muslim women break
silence and taboo around their experience of sexual
harassment/abuse during Haj/Umra or in sacred
spaces. Let’s use #MosqueMeToo

Mona Eltahawy @monaeltahawy

I am glad to see women are speaking out about being sexually
harassed during Hajj. Several years ago, i shared my own
experience with sexual assault during the pilgrimage (see
following tweets) stepfeed.com/women-are-spea… h/t
@jwildeboer #MeToo

7:57 AM · Feb 6, 2018

Read the full conversation on Twitter

673 Reply Share this Tweet

Read 45 replies
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12/11/21, 3:34 PM #MosqueMeToo Gives Muslim Women A Voice About Sexual Misconduct At Mecca : Goats and Soda : NPR
Read 45 replies

Sexual assault during hajj is not a new phenomenon. "It's clearly happening and has
been happening, but we don't know how widespread this is," says Rothna Begum, the
women's rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa for Human Rights
Watch. "Given the taboo nature of sexual harassment, women are probably not
reporting this."

That — and the fear of stoking the Islamophobia that persists in the world today. Many
women are worried that speaking out will give the public a reason to "further blame
Muslims," says Daisy Khan, the executive director of the Women's Islamic Initiative in
Spirituality and Equality. "The tendency is to keep it under wraps."

Eltahawy thinks that #MeToo, the movement to end sexual harassment in the
workplace, has helped Muslim women feel comfortable enough to open up about their
abuse. "People pay attention to what famous Hollywood actresses do. But #MeToo has
to be available to all people — not those who are rich, famous and white."

That's why she started #MosqueMeToo, she says. "I wanted it to be a space where
women can share our stories from hajj and the Muslim space."

Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. It requires Muslims who are healthy and
financially able to travel to Mecca at least once in their lifetime. During this time, men
and women perform a ritual called tawaf: praying while making seven circles around
the Kaaba, a black cubic structure in the middle of the Great Mosque. The Kaaba is
believed to have served as a sanctuary for centuries.

THE TWO-WAY
A New Survey Finds 81 Percent Of Women Have Experienced Sexual Harassment

It is during the tawaf that many women experience groping, fondling and grabbing,
says Eltahawy, according to the responses she's heard from women. "It's very crowded.

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At any given moment, there are thousands of men and women [circling Kaaba at one
time]."

The social media testimonies are unprecedented, says Begum. "It's exposing
something that has not been talked about. It's brave of women to come forward."

But it's unclear whether there will be an impact on the authorities in Saudi Arabia,
which is in charge of the mosque.

Saudi Arabia, which operates under sharia law, did just put a new law in place to
address sexual harassment, says Begum. Created in December 2017, the law states that
people who are found guilty of such behavior by the Saudi authorities can be subjected
to punishment, which includes flogging or imprisonment. Saudi leadership has called
harassment a "contradiction of Islamic principles."

THE TWO-WAY
Saudi Arabia Says It Will End Ban And Allow Women To Drive

According to Fatimah Baeshen, a spokesperson at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia

in Washington, D.C., the harassment law is part of a broader set of reforms taking
place in the country under a program called Vision 2030, which "levels the playing
field and facilitates the advancements of women."

Given the increased access of Saudi women into the public space, "the government is
proactively ensuring that along with more mobility women also feel safe," says
Baeshen.

Muslim activists like Khan hope that #MosqueMeToo can trigger change. "I've seen
things in hajj that I am personally disturbed by," she says. "Measures need to be taken
[to protect women]. There is no place for it."

Still, a part of her fears that conservative Muslim clerics may twist #MosqueMeToo to
women's detriment. "The danger is that people could use this to try to separate men

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from women, which could be a disaster. We have enjoyed [praying] in the same space
together for [more than 1,400 years]," she says.

In 2006, Saudi authorities attempted to restrict women's access to the holiest part of
the Great Mosque, but it was met with protest from various Islamic groups, including
Khan's.

Islamic leaders like Saba Ghori see #MosqueMeToo as a wakeup call. She's the board
president of Peaceful Families Project, a group that works to prevent gender-based
violence in Muslim families.

Ghori says her group is striving to "be part of the solution." She hopes to "continually
raise these issues of [sexual harassment] in the Muslim community" through training
and education programs, cultivating support from imams and male allies, and helping
the women who do speak out seek justice.

Eltahawy has her own advice. "Saudi authorities should insist that the imam of the
Great Mosque give a sermon to all Muslims around the world that it is shameful to
harass women and it must stop," she says.

"And Saudi policemen must be trained in handling complaints, not assaulting Muslim
women," she adds.

She has been assaulted at hajj two times. The second time, she says, was by a Saudi
policeman: As she was leaning down to kiss the the outer walls of Kaaba, he fondled
her breast.

saudi sexual harassment women saudi arabia muslim

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