Muay Thai helps women fight sexual harassment in Egypt, one of the world’s least gender equal countries
- Mostly women and girls learn Muay Thai at the Monsters Academy in Egypt, whose coach was sexually harassed herself five years ago
- Debate over sexual harassment is growing in the socially conservative nation, where women regularly face offensive comments and groping on public transport
Four young Egyptian women wearing headscarves, leggings and boxing gloves punch and kick each other, encouraged by their female coach Samah Ahmed - founder of the Monsters Academy.
Ahmed, known to everyone as Coach Samah, started learning Thai boxing, or Muay Thai, five years ago after being sexually harassed, and now teaches the martial art to about 40 people, mostly women and girls, at her own training camp.
“Muay Thai turns every part of your body into a weapon: your elbows, your knees, your fists and even your chin,” Ahmed said from her one-year-old academy in Abu Zaabal, about 30km (19 miles) northeast of Cairo, the capital city.
“Girls will not need to hold weapons to defend themselves. They can use their bodies as defence,” she said, adding that she named it Monsters Academy because it takes the courage and power of a monster to learn Thai boxing.
Debate over sexual harassment is growing in the socially conservative country, where women regularly face offensive comments, stares and groping on crowded public transport, which can deter them from travelling for work or education.
A 2017 Thomson Reuters Foundation poll found Cairo to be the most dangerous megacity for women, and a United Nations’ survey in 2013 found that 99 per cent of women had experienced sexual harassment in Egypt, where women have long felt disadvantaged.