Egypt has no dedicated law on violence against women, and neither the Penal Code nor the Cybercrime Law comprehensively recognizes or criminalizes the many forms that violence against women can take.
The Anti-Violence Against Women Law, or the Unified Law to Combat Violence Against Women, is an attempt to close that gap. As of July 8, it has been conditionally adopted by MP Maha Abdel Nasser of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party for parliamentary consideration.
This is the latest draft in a 21-year string of attempts to pass a unified law on violence against women in Egypt. The Cairo Report obtained a copy of the version now headed toward parliament.
According to Al Manassa’s Hagar Othman, the current iteration of the draft was spearheaded by the Unified Law to Combat Violence Task Force, which currently includes the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law (CFDL), the Egyptian Women Lawyers Foundation, and Tadwein for Gender Studies.
The need for it is very real.
“99% of women in Egypt have experienced sexual harassment.”
Few statistics have circulated as widely among Egyptian women online. During the country’s #MeToo movement in 2020, young women posted the figure in both Arabic and English across their social media profiles, not as fact so much as a shared recognition of a reality that had long been treated as ordinary.
That period was marked by a series of high-profile cases, including the murders of Nayera Ashraf and Salma Bahgat, the digital blackmail cases of Basant Khaled and Haidy Shehata, the Fairmont Hotel gang rape case, and the sexual harassment allegations against Ahmed Bassem Zaki, all of which forced a wider public reckoning with the pervasiveness of gender-based violence and the limits of legal accountability.
Yet the numbers that continue to emerge remain stark. The 2025 Violence Against Women report by Sout to Support Women’s Rights, based solely on documented and reported cases, offers only a partial, but very grim, glimpse into the scale of gender-based violence.
Physical violence, including murder and assault, accounted for 61% of the cases recorded, followed by sexual violence, including harassment, abduction, and rape, at 16%. Psychological violence, such as threats, insults, and humiliation, made up 6%, while economic violence accounted for 4%.
The report also found that 70% of domestic violence cases were committed by close family members. Husbands were the primary perpetrators, followed by fathers; an unsettling reminder that, for most women, violence is most likely to come from within their own homes.
Against this brutal backdrop, the draft’s fate in parliament is yet another test of whether Egypt’s civil society is capable of translating advocacy into enforceable law.
The foundation
The most consequential moves in this law are not the new crimes, but the structural fixes underneath them.
The first three articles, while standard, set the stage.
It demands the state pledge to protect women and girls from violence, discrimination, abuse, neglect, exploitation, harassment, and deprivation, and to guarantee equal enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights (Art. 1). Bodily integrity is explicitly protected, including against organ or tissue trafficking (Art. 2). Protections must meet or exceed Egypt’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other ratified international conventions (Art. 3).
Then, it works on closing some loopholes in Egypt’s Penal Code.
Marriage, kinship, and guardianship, which used to function as a mitigating factor, sometimes even a defense, can no longer excuse or reduce punishment for anything in this law (Art. 4). Egypt’s penal code offered weaker protection whenever families were involved, even though most violence against women happens within families.
The clock also stops running on the worst crimes. Child marriage, female genital mutilation (FGM), rape, sexual assault against a girl under 18, abduction, and disfiguring acid or burn attacks can now be prosecuted no matter how much time has passed. There is no statute of limitations at all. However, every other crime under the law carries a 15-year limitation period (Art. 5).
Judges also lose some of the discretion the Penal Code otherwise gives them (Art. 17) to reduce sentences below the legal minimum, discretion feminists have long argued was routinely used to let offenders off lightly, especially in family cases. This draft law does allow exceptions, but only where the law itself specifies them (Art. 6).
Digital evidence, including messages, recordings, images, and data, is explicitly usable in court for the crimes this law covers, and a case does not need a physical exam or an eyewitness if the judge is convinced by the evidence as a whole (Art. 7).
Additionally, the law removes money, paperwork, and age as potential obstacles to filing a complaint. A young victim’s age cannot be used to block a complaint from being filed (Art. 8), and victims pay no court fees or stamp duties on any filing connected to these crimes (Art. 9).
The law also builds dedicated infrastructure to handle these cases.
New circuits within the courts of first instance and appeal have exclusive jurisdiction over crimes under this law (Art. 10), matched by dedicated prosecution circuits to investigate and dispose of them (Art. 11).
Each relevant prosecution office also gets a Restorative Justice Unit, chaired by a senior prosecutor and staffed with a legal specialist and a psychological specialist, whose job is to screen cases for voluntary, safe settlement as an alternative track, subject to a senior prosecutor’s approval (Art. 12).
Defining violence
The law redefines violence and crimes against women, and for the first time gives digital abuse its own taxonomy; offenses that previously had to be squeezed, awkwardly, into Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018.
Including economic violence against women is also an important step. Financial control, deprivation of resources, and economic dependence are real forms of abuse that limit women’s freedom.
The law defines its terms carefully (Art. 13), since many drive which article applies:
Violence against women and girls: Any violent act or threat, or refusal to take a legally required action, done on the basis of sex-based discrimination, causing or likely to cause physical, sexual, psychological, mental, or economic harm, or depriving her of fundamental rights or freedoms.
Sexual violence/rape: Any penetration (vaginal, anal, or oral) by any body part or object, without free, explicit, informed consent, regardless of the relationship between the parties (this covers marital rape).
Sexual exploitation: Exploiting a woman’s body for financial, social, political, or sexual benefit through power, dependency, fraud, or coercion.
Domestic violence: Any act of violence, threat thereof, or omission committed within a family relationship, whether or not the offender lives with the victim, which results in or is likely to result in physical, psychological, mental, sexual, or economic harm or suffering, or deprivation of rights and freedoms within or outside the family.
Economic violence: Controlling or restricting a woman’s access to her income, wages, or property, including unequal pay or blocked career advancement.
Digital violence: An umbrella category covering digital harassment, digital extortion, digital stalking/tracking, non-consensual publication of personal data or images, and digital psychological violence (threats, insults, online defamation).
Bullying: Any behavior, statement, gesture, or exercise of power or control, or exploitation of a real or perceived vulnerability of the victim, whether related to gender, race, religion, appearance, disability, health, social, or economic status, that is likely to cause psychological, physical, or moral harm, or instill fear, ridicule, humiliation, or social isolation.
Restorative justice: A voluntary, non-coercive alternative dispute mechanism involving structured dialogue between victim, offender, and community, aimed at repairing harm rather than pure punishment.
Consent: Must be free, conscious, and informed; void if obtained through coercion, threat, fraud, abuse of power, or from someone unable to meaningfully understand the act.
The extended family: Family that extends to include, in addition to parents and their biological or adopted children, all those related to the family by blood or marriage, who habitually reside with it or actively participate in its social or economic life, including legal guardians and those in similar positions.
Child marriage: Any marriage or union, formal or informal, involving a person under 18, regardless of whether the child or a guardian “consented.”
Virginity testing: Banned outright except under a reasoned judicial order tied to a criminal investigation, with the woman’s informed consent and proper medical supervision.
Victim: Any woman or girl who has suffered physical, psychological, or moral harm as a result of an act or omission that constitutes an infringement of legally established rights or protections, regardless of the nature of her relationship with the perpetrator. This includes anyone harmed while intervening to support or protect the original victim.
Protection order: A court order barring an offender from approaching, contacting, or confronting the victim, potentially including removal from the shared home or communication restrictions.
Crimes & punishments
Almost every crime in the law follows the same logic; the baseline penalty is real, but it gets significantly worse if the offender had power over the victim or if the victim was a girl, pregnant, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable.
Categorizing digital violence against women is relatively new territory, codifying online harms that previously had no dedicated legal category.
The draft law would establish a specialized prosecution office to handle digital violence cases and empower it to issue digital protection orders, while also introducing fast-track court procedures (Art. 30). Prosecutors would be able to order the blocking or suspension of online accounts, websites, or content, and service providers would have three days to comply (Art. 39). Reports of digital violence would have to be addressed within three months, with cases involving sexual abuse or threats given priority (Art. 40).
Reporting mechanisms
Rather than leaving reporting to walk-in police stations, the law creates a parallel infrastructure specifically for these crimes. Every police station gets a specialized unit, a social worker, a psychologist, a physician, and at least one female officer, available 24/7 to take reports, secure evidence, and give a victim immediate protection before the case moves anywhere (Art. 41). It also demands a national hotline and electronic reporting system with confidentiality built in (Art. 42).
From there, cases go to dedicated prosecution offices, not general prosecutors, who can appoint a lawyer for the victim if she does not have one, bring in an interpreter, and issue a protection order themselves during the investigation, all before trial even starts (Art. 43).
Protection orders more generally are meant to move fast; a judge has 48 hours to rule on a request, and even if the offender appeals, the order stays in force unless the court specifically says otherwise (Art. 50).
Additionally, certain people, including family members, medical and social service providers, and anyone who works in women’s protection, are legally required to report any of these crimes should they come to their attention (Art. 44, 45).
Failing to do so is itself a crime, punishable by up to a year in prison and a fine, with a harsher punishment if the person who stayed silent was a public official (Art. 59).
On the other side, a victim can withdraw her case at any point, as long as the court is satisfied the decision was hers and not made under pressure. In tandem, pressuring a victim to withdraw is a separate offense (Art. 45).
Where a case goes is also made easier for the victim. She can file wherever she lives, wherever the crime happened, wherever the offender lives, or even wherever she first got medical care or shelter (Art. 44).
A victim will not be forced to chase the case to wherever is most convenient for the system, the system will be reconfigured to protect her.
Settlement, process protection & international commitment
Not every case in this law heads straight to trial.
Prosecutors can propose restorative justice for crimes of a “family nature” “if it does not threaten the victim’s rights or safety; any settlement must be confirmed by the court under restorative-justice principles” (Art. 51, 53).
The law also protects the process itself.
Leaking victim data or investigation details carries at least three months’ imprisonment plus a fine of at least 10,000 pounds, aggravated if a public official is responsible (Art. 60). Pressuring or coercing a victim into withdrawing her complaint carries a fine of at least 50,000 pounds, doubled, and career-ending, for public officials (Art. 62). Victims, or their heirs, can also separately claim financial compensation for material and moral damage (Art. 63).
The law extends internationally, too. It demands Egypt commit to extradition, evidence-sharing, and cross-border enforcement of protection orders, backed by a dedicated international cooperation unit and an Interpol-linked database for the most serious offenses (Art. 65, 66).
The scaffolding
The law calls for the establishment of a National Committee for Combating Violence against Women and Girls; a policy-setting body (not an investigative or enforcement one) under the cabinet, chaired by the Minister of Justice, with representatives from the ministries of interior, social solidarity, education, housing, media, finance, culture, and youth and sports, as well as the Public Prosecution, the National Council for Women (NCW), the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, the National Council for Mental Health, and civil society (Art. 68, 69).
This body’s job is to build a national strategy to combat violence against women, maintain a violence database, coordinate protection and/or shelter services, propose awareness programmes, and report to parliament annually on violence indicators and institutional performance. As a nationwide mechanism, it must create regional or sectoral sub-committees that handle local coordination (Art. 70-73).
It also requires the creation of a national referral system linking the police, prosecution, health authorities, shelters, and social welfare bodies for quick and efficient responses. Relevant authorities must develop shelter, psychological and social support, legal aid, and economic empowerment and rehabilitation services, as well (Art. 76).
The National Fund to Support Victims of Violence is another mechanism under the draft law (Art. 77). It will be an independent legal entity whose board is appointed by the cabinet, funded by state allocations, court-ordered fines/compensation, and donations, audited by the Central Auditing Organization, and run by a board chaired by a Finance Ministry representative.
Twenty-one years in the making
In the late 1990s, the New Woman Foundation (NWF) established a task force on sexual harassment, which contributed to the inclusion of six provisions on sexual harassment and stalking within the Penal Code under the interim government of Hazem El-Beblawi between July 2013 and February 2014, per a research paper by the NWF, titled A Feminist Reading of the Unified Draft Law on Combating Violence Against Women.
Yet for many activists, these piecemeal amendments never addressed the structural nature of violence against women.
The first call for a comprehensive law, however, was made in 2005, when the El Nadeem Center Against Violence and Torture began advocating for dedicated anti-violence legislation, according to the paper.
A domestic violence bill was indeed submitted to Parliament in 2012, but it disappeared amid successive parliamentary dissolutions following the January 25 Revolution.
However, it was not until 2017, following the publication of the NCW’s eighth amended draft law in 2017, that the NWF criticized the proposal and called instead for an independent coalition of feminist and human rights organizations to draft a unified law, establishing the Task Force for a Unified Law to Combat Violence Against Women.
The task force originally brought together the NWF, El Nadeem Center, Nazra for Feminist Studies, Women and Memory Forum (WMF), the Egyptian Women Lawyers Initiative, Tadwein Gender Studies Center, the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR), the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), and the CFDL.
Its first draft consisted of 54 articles organized around definitions, litigation procedures, sexual offences, reproductive crimes, trafficking and abduction, domestic violence, and prevention.
Unfortunately, attempts to transform the draft into legislation have repeatedly stalled.
Later, MP Nadia Henry introduced versions of the unified law in 2018, before MP Nashwa El-Deeb continued the effort in 2021. Although the proposals reportedly secured the 60 parliamentary signatures required for referral to the legislative committee, they never progressed to a full parliamentary debate.
In tandem, what began as a 54-article proposal expanded considerably over successive revisions. Simultaneously, several member organizations withdrew from the task force.
In April, members of the National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) argued that a comprehensive law on violence against women was “no longer optional, but necessary,” as reported by Youm7’s Menatallah Hamdy.
A few months later, on July 8, the current iteration of the task force launched another parliamentary push during a conference in Cairo and announced that MP Maha Abdel Nasser would formally present the draft within the parliament.
However, Abdel Nasser’s championing of the law was conditional.
“I removed the marital rape article because it could obstruct the entire law in parliament and reduce the whole debate to that single article,” Abdel Nasser told Al Manassa’s Othman. “The crime is already difficult to prove, and society will not accept it at all. But I certainly support criminalizing virginity tests conducted without legal basis because they constitute an unacceptable violation of Egyptian women.”
Regionally, Egypt’s proposed legislation would be unusual. Only a handful of Arab states, including Tunisia, Morocco, and Lebanon, have enacted comprehensive laws addressing violence against women, while many others continue to rely on domestic violence legislation or scattered provisions within their penal codes.
So, what?!
The law will remain little more than ink on paper unless it makes it onto parliament’s agenda, which necessitates, at the very least, a genuine recognition of the catastrophic conditions of women’s ordinary lives, a recognition The New Republic has structural reasons to avoid.
Gender-based violence in Egypt is inseparable from the economic precarity that structures most women’s lives, and that precarity is not incidental but produced. Decades of privatization, wage suppression, and the state’s retreat from public provisioning have pushed the cost of social reproduction back onto the household, where it is absorbed disproportionately by women’s unpaid labor and enforced by their economic dependence on men.
The law’s inclusion of economic violence is a rare acknowledgment that abuse is not only interpersonal but structural. But naming the harm is not the same as disrupting the arrangement that produces it. A woman without independent income has little practical ability to invoke a protection order against a husband who controls the household’s resources, regardless of what the statute says. Rights without material independence are rights on paper only.
Legislation, however comprehensive, is not self-executing. Without the “scaffolding,” it is just another reform listed in the Official Gazette.
Nor should passage be mistaken for prevention. Even a fully enforced law functions, at best, as a deterrent and a remedy after the fact.
It does not touch the underlying conditions that produce that violence in the first place; ones rooted in who controls income, property, and labor within the household, and in a state that has no material interest in disturbing that arrangement so long as it keeps the reproduction of the workforce cheap and privatized.
This is explicit, actually, in Abdel Nasser’s removal of the marital rape provision. Her justification, that “society will not accept it”, reveals that the law’s final shape is being negotiated against the tolerance of conservative political blocs, which make up most of parliament, not against the actual scale of harm documented in the gruesome annual reports from feminist organizations.
Whether this draft survives its 21-year gestation to become enforceable law depends entirely on what Egypt’s civil society organizations are actually fighting for: a symbolic ceiling or a material floor.