Rape in Egypt

Rape in Egypt is a criminal offense with penalties ranging from 15 to 25 years and a lifetime sentence if the rape included abduction. Marital rape is legal.^[1] By 2008, the U.N. quoted Egypt's Interior Ministry's figure that 20,000 rapes take place every year, although according to the activist Engy Ghozlan (ECWR), rapes are 10 times higher than the stats given by Interior Ministry, making it 200,000 per year.^[2] Mona Eltahawy has also noted the same figure (200,000), and added that this was before the revolution.

Rapes have been carried out during festivals and the Egyptian protests, and include the public rapes of women, and female journalists.^[3] Egypt has passed multiple laws to protect women from both online and personal harassments ^[4] and approved a new law to protect women from violence at home.^[5]