This paper gives a brief background on violence against women since "the Black Wednesday" in 2005 with a focus on the past few months amid COVID-19 pandemic from both state and non-state actors. The paper aims at showing how the pandemic led to increased targeting of women human rights defenders and provided an opportunity for the state to further shut down the public sphere.

 The government's disposition toward citizens' rights and freedoms is a measure of its openness and an indicator of the type of relationship it holds with them. The constitution stands as the most powerful reflection of that relationship. Egypt certainly has a long-standing tradition of drafting constitutions as a political process. Throughout that tradition, granting certain rights or consolidating some forms of government were constantly pursued and this is evident in Egyptian constitutions since 1923.

The situation of women in prisons and detention centers in Egypt is not much different from their situation elsewhere. The violence, discrimination and exploitation which women face in prisons and detention centers is merely a manifestation of what most women suffer in an outside world governed by patriarchal rationale. Despite the fact that women account for a much lower percentage of inmates compared to men, ranging between 2% and 10%, the numbers of women inmates are significantly and disproportionately increasing .

Introduction