Dressed in a hijab and covered from head to toe, she felt something. Someone — a man — had grabbed onto her butt and would not let go.
The Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, called hajj, was supposed to be the holiest moment of Mona Eltahawy's life. When she was 15, she journeyed there with her family. The magnificence of the Great Mosque had taken her breath away. But that man turned the trip into a nightmare.
Instead of telling the authorities, the young Eltahawy simply burst into tears.
"Who wants to talk about sexual assault at a holy place? No one would believe it," she says, recalling the encounter, which took place in 1982.
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