Allegedly Harassing Two Female Tourists At The Giza Pyramids, Egyptian Prosecutors Order Detention Of 13 Teenagers

Illustration of tourists at the Pyramids of Giza, Egypt. (Wikimedia Commons/Vincent Brown)

JAKARTA - Prosecutors in Egypt have ordered the detention of 13 teenage boys who were arrested on suspicion of harassing two female foreign tourists at the Giza Pyramids.

Egyptians expressed outrage on social media last week after a video showed a group of young men raping young women at an archaeological site.

A prosecutor's statement said the boy was between 13 and 15 years old. They claimed that they just wanted to take pictures with the tourists and didn't mean to cause trouble.

The boys will be held in a juvenile detention center until the investigation is complete, the prosecutor's statement said, as reported by BBC on May 9.

He added that the complaint accusing the boys of verbal and physical abuse had been filed by the tour guide who shot the video, not the woman herself.

In the 35-second clip, the tour guide can be heard complaining that Egyptian boys are 'chasing foreigners', saying he wants the Tourism Minister to be alert.

Boys can be seen holding cell phones as they crowd around the woman, who is trying to escape. One of the women tried to push a boy after another appeared to touch them from behind.

In recent years, dozens of women inspired by the #MeToo movement have spoken out on social media about their experiences of sexual harassment and assault in Egypt.

The country's parliament approved tougher sentences for sexual harassment last year, amending the penal code to make it a crime and increasing the sentence to a minimum of two years in prison instead of six months, in addition to fines of between $6,370 and $12,740.

However, Egyptian authorities have been accused of frequently failing to investigate and prosecute men accused of sexually abusing, or assaulting women and girls.

A UN study in 2013 found that about 99.3 percent of girls and women in Egypt reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime, with about 82.6 percent not feeling safe or unsafe on the road.