CAIRO: As of this week, the Ministry of Endowments began distributing a book titled, “Sexual Harassment: Causes and Solutions,” among imams at mosques nationwide.

The book was written by the Minister of Endowments Hamdi Zaqzouq and Salem Abdel Geleil, deputy minister of religious endowments for preaching.

“The main objective behind this book is to educate the imams and raise their awareness to contemporary problems and issues in the Egyptian society,” explained Atef Galal, head of the public relations department at the ministry.

The book defines the meaning of sexual harassment and discusses its prevalence in today’s society. It outlines the possible motives behind harassment, but it also criticizes how some girls may be asking for harassment by the way they are dressed or by their behavior.

The book also condemns music videos with offensive content TV content.

Sexual harassment in Egypt has been making headlines worldwide, attracting a lot more attention than it did before. During the past few years the media has been exposing the issue with headlines reading “Egypt’s Sexual Harassment Cancer” on BBC News and “Streets of Shame” in Al-Ahram Weekly.

Women’s rights organizations are making headway combating the issue. The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) has conducted several studies revealing that 48.4 percent of Egyptian and 51.4 percent of foreign women of all ages are subjected to sexual harassment in Egypt.

Findings also showed that 88 percent of the sample witnessed a harassment incident.

A study titled “Clouds in Egypt’s Sky” is part of the ECWR’s “Making our Streets Safer for Everyone” campaign, also found that 2.4 percent of the male sample surveyed confirmed that they have perpetrated and/or continue to perpetrate one or more forms of harassment.

Last October, a landslide court verdict had Sherif Gomaa Gibrial, a driver, sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor and fined LE 5,001 for harassing Noha Roushdy in broad daylight in June 2007.