The Nightmare of Harassment in Schools| On those who grew up too soon

“We grew up without noticing… we were not allowed to grow up slowly.” — Mahmoud Darwish, “Letters with Samih Al-Qasim”

May 2025

A child in a Spider-Man costume stood encircled by camera lenses and a mix of curious and pitying gazes. The scene was both solemn and devastating. Instead of being with his classmates at school, or in a safe play area, six-year-old “S” had come to a courtroom in the city of Damanhour to recount the details of his rape at the hands of a man in his seventies, inside the school bathroom.

Shame filled the room. Not the shame of “S,” who could not possibly comprehend what had been done to him at such a young age, but the shame of those present, confronted with their failure to create a safe environment in the very schools they send their children to every day. Schools where they cannot know whether their children will encounter decent human beings, or suffer the misfortune of meeting another Sabri Kamel—the defendant who exploited his role as a financial supervisor at the school to commit his crime, aided and abetted by one of the female custodians.

The court sentenced Kamel to life in prison, before the sentence was reduced on appeal to 10 years. Yet the case forced open eyes that might otherwise have remained closed, were it not for the courage of a mother who chose to fight, for her child and for all children.

Just days ago, a criminal court referred the case of a worker at an international school in Alexandria to the Grand Mufti for consultation on a death sentence, after he was charged with abducting five kindergarten children and sexually assaulting them.

Soon after, new allegations of sexual abuse surfaced, this time in Cairo. Seven employees at Seeds International School were implicated in crimes against children in the same age group.

Airwaves and news pages have filled with harrowing testimonies of sexual assaults against children inside Egyptian schools—governmental and international alike, from Alexandria to Upper Egypt. Parents now greet their children with questions about any inappropriate touch they may have experienced at school, before asking about homework or lessons learned. Everyone is asking: What is happening? And why do these incidents seem to be increasing?

Most likely, they are not increasing—it is the ability to speak about them that has changed. For decades, it was never easy for a child to disclose what they had endured at school. And if they did, parents often chose silence, resolving the matter by transferring their child elsewhere.

If they spoke out, the issue was frequently settled through informal reconciliation sessions—handshakes and appeasement—or worse, by casting blame and stigma upon the child and their family.

What has increased is visibility. What has made it possible is awareness. And this is only a first step in confronting an enemy that has fed on silence until it swelled into something monstrous.

Harassment of schoolgirls

A shocking investigation published by Business Insider revealed a long series of sexual violations inside a single school in California, spanning years.

The investigation drew on internal documents, testimonies from former and current students, and disciplinary records of teachers and staff. Together, they pointed to complicity by the school and local administration—an institutional silence that shielded repeated complaints of harassment and sexual assault.

Each time, the outcome was the same: a hollow inquiry, followed by quietly transferring the accused teacher or staff member to another school.

As the investigation triggered a surge of testimonies about that school and others, state authorities moved to revise laws and regulations. In October 2025, a new law was introduced establishing a national database to vet employees before hiring, ensuring no serious allegations of harassment or assault had been brought against them at any prior stage.

The law also required schools to provide specialized training for all staff on how to recognize and report signs of harassment and abuse. It mandated clear, written policies defining professional boundaries for everyone working within the school.

Lawmakers did not lose themselves in debates over harsher punishments. Instead, they focused on closing the pathways that allow such crimes to occur in the first place. Murder has been punishable by death for thousands of years, yet data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime shows that global homicide rates rose from around 400,000 in 1992 to more than 460,000 in 2017—roughly one killing every minute.

Crime does not meaningfully decline in a city simply because the penalty is raised from 10 years in prison to life. It may, however, decline far more significantly when every street is watched—when the conditions that enable harm are systematically dismantled.

November 2025

After repeated incidents of harassment against students, Minister of Education Mohamed Abdel-Latif issued Circular No. 19, introducing new measures to safeguard students in private and international schools. These included updating surveillance camera systems to cover all spaces, requiring periodic drug testing for staff, and launching awareness activities for students.

These are important steps. But what if the person monitoring the cameras is complicit, as in “S’s” case? What if the perpetrators act as a group, as in the Seeds International School case? What if the victims never speak—as is true in most cases?

And more urgently: what about public schools?

In Egypt, 87.2% of students attend public schools, compared to just 12.8% in private and international institutions, according to the Ministry of Education’s annual statistics report for the 2024–2025 academic year.

The minister knows—and we know—that if surveillance systems exist in public schools at all, they are insufficient. We know that classroom density in primary education reaches 50.1 students, according to official UNICEF estimates.

We know there are evening schools where children return home in the dark. We know there are schools in villages and hamlets across the Delta and Upper Egypt where justice for victims cannot be taken for granted.

We do not need reactive statements issued under the pressure of public opinion—moments when school harassment becomes a trend the ministry responds to, only for attention to move on. We need sustained, collective dialogue to reach durable solutions: legislation and concrete steps that restore trust in schools.

But before all of that, we must confront every impulse that seeks to justify sexual violence or cast doubt upon it—no matter the banner under which it hides.

December 2025

Inside the United Nations building in Geneva, during a session on the persecution of minorities, writer Dena Anwer held up photos of seven detainees imprisoned for “belief-related” reasons—some for wanting to change their religion, others for rejecting religion altogether. Among them was Sabri Kamel.

Do you remember the name?

Yes—the man accused of raping the child “S.” He was placed alongside others detained on religious grounds, framed as a Christian subjected to incitement that affected the course of his trial.

Defending her position, Dena said the accused had not received a fair trial, envoking the memory of Emmett Till.

The same writer who has never once been known to defend a single political prisoner—many of whom have spent years in pretrial detention without ever standing before a judge—now speaks in defense of a man who stood before his natural judge, passed through all levels of litigation, and was convicted in each.

Elsewhere, about four years ago, a follower asked Islamic preacher Abdullah Roshdy during a Facebook livestream watched by hundreds of thousands about the causes of child harassment. The question came after reports that a Quran instructor had been involved in harassment crimes against girls he taught, despite Roshdy’s frequent claim that harassment is caused by women wearing “inappropriate” clothing.

Her question was pointed: “The ones harassed in kindergarten—were they dressed provocatively too, sheikh?”

He replied: “Those who harass children suffer from sexual repression, caused by the scenes and visuals they see all day from people wearing revealing clothes.”

For decades, this issue has been damaged by doubting victims’ narratives and intentions, and by inventing excuses for perpetrators based on their social, political, or religious standing—protecting what they represent. Fear imprisoned the victims for years, while perpetrators were set free.

Today, voices like these return amid discussions on how to protect our children in schools—dragging us back, once again, to square one, where the perpetrator and the victim are redefined.

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(*) This story was first published in Arabic on December 16th, 2025.