According to a recent report issued by the United Nations, the vast majority of Egyptian men view beating their wives as “their right.” The UN’s population council conducted the study of 15,000 young people in governorates across Egypt and discovered 80 percent of men and 67 percent of women agree that husbands are justified in beating their wife if she talks to other men.

It also uncovered what women’s advocates have told Bikya Masr are “scary” statistics. The study said that 8 percent of young men between the ages of 10- and 29-years-old said it was acceptable to beat their wife if she burned food. Some one-third of men surveyed added that they would beat their wives if she argued or refused to have sex with them.