The Sout to Support Women’s Rights initiative documented 364 cases of violence against women and girls in Egypt during 2025, spanning physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and social violence, according to the annual bulletin issued by the initiative’s Monitoring and Research Unit.
Sout (Voice) said the figures were drawn from online news websites and do not necessarily reflect the true scale of the phenomenon, given that many cases are not officially reported.
The data showed that physical violence, such as killing and assault, topped the cases at 61%, followed by sexual violence, such as harassment, abduction, and rape, at 16%. Psychological violence, such as threats, insults, and belittlement, accounted for 6%, while economic violence, such as deprivation of financial resources, stood at 4%.
The data indicated that murder accounted for 22% of all cases, and was often linked to the use of knives or strangulation.
The bulletin said about 70% of domestic violence crimes were committed by close family members. Husbands topped the list of perpetrators, followed by fathers, with cases documented in which killings were sometimes attributed to motives described as “minor disputes.”
Victims’ ages ranged from young girls to adult women. The 36 to 50 age group was the most exposed to violence at 10.4%, followed by girls under 12 at 8.6%, and those ages 12 to 21 at 7.7%. The share of women over 50 exposed to violence reached 6.5%.
The Egyptian Family Health Survey 2021 reported that 31% of ever-married women aged 15–49 had experienced domestic violence from their husbands on at least one occasion, including 25.5% who faced physical violence, 5.6% sexual violence, and 22.3% psychological violence.
As Egypt marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in November 2025, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and UN Women issued the 2025 femicide report. It stated that 83,000 women and girls were killed intentionally last year, 60% of whom were killed by intimate partners or family members.
Commenting on the findings, lawyer Noha Sayed, Sout’s executive director, attributed the rise in domestic violence to the absence of deterrent legislation, and to the continued exploitation of legal loopholes such as Article 17 of the penal code, which allows a sentence to be reduced in certain circumstances.
“Clever defense lawyers can get the sentence of someone who kills his wife or sister reduced using the ‘defense of honor’. This kills the idea of justice in its cradle,” Sayed told Al Manassa.
She said women often refrain from reporting because of social stigma, fear of scandal, and blame, creating a wall of silence that allows violations to continue.
She added that the initiative faces “fierce attacks” when it publishes news of deterrent rulings, as a segment of society embraces a victim-blaming logic. For example, in cases of child marriage, some ask sarcastically, “Why isn’t the girl imprisoned like the man?” ignoring the lack of legal capacity and age.
Sayed called for the current House of Representatives to issue a unified law to combat violence against women and girls, to define terms such as “domestic violence” and “spousal violence,” which current law does not explicitly recognize.
In 2017, a task force of six feminist organizations was formed to draft a proposed unified law to combat violence against women. The groups included Egyptian Women’s Issues, Tadwin for Gender Studies, and New Woman, as well as the Egyptian Women Lawyers Initiative, Cairo for Development and Law, and El Nadeem Center. They succeeded in delivering the proposal to parliament through MP Nadia Henry in 2018, then MP Nashwa Eldeeb in 2022, but it has yet to become law.
