Torture in [Egypt] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Egypt Street Children in [Egypt] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Egypt] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Egypt.htm
Egypt is a source,
transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes
of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Some of Egypt’s estimated one
million street children – both boys and girls – are exploited in prostitution
and forced begging. Local gangs are, at times, involved in this exploitation.
Egyptian children are recruited for domestic and agricultural labor; some of
these children face conditions indicative of involuntary servitude, such as
restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical or
sexual abuse. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2009 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Human Rights Watch Reports, www.hrw.org/reports/2001/egypt/Egypt01.htm#P46_655 [accessed 3 February 2011] SUMMARY - Each year over
one million children between the ages of seven and twelve are hired by ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/egypt.htm [accessed 3 February 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Reports indicate a widespread practice of poor rural
families making arrangements to send daughters to cities to work as domestic
servants in the homes of wealthy citizens.
Human
Rights Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61687.htm [accessed 3 February 2011] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– There were anecdotal and press reports of
trafficking of persons from sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe through the
country to Europe and Organ trafficking on the rise in Egypt,
says new report Sarah Sheffer, Bikya Masr (Egyptian: resellable clutter), bikyamasr.com/50684/organ-trafficking-on-the-rise-in-egypt-says-new-report/ [accessed 12 December 2011] A shocking new report
by the Coalition for Organ Failure Solutions (COFS) COFS estimates that
there are thousands of victims of organ trafficking in Child maids now being exported to US Associated Press AP, December 28, 2008 www.zimbio.com/AP+News/articles/7537/Child+maids+now+being+exported [accessed 3 February 2011] Shyima was 10 when a
wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Once behind the
walls of gated communities like this one, these children never go to school.
Unbeknownst to their neighbors, they live as modern-day slaves, just like Shyima, whose story is pieced together through court
records, police transcripts and interviews. Shyima cried when she
found out she was going to America in 2000. Her father, a bricklayer, had
fallen ill a few years earlier, so her mother found a maid recruiter, signed
a contract effectively leasing her daughter to the couple for 10 years and
told Shyima to be strong. She arrived at Los
Angeles International Airport on Aug. 3, 2000, according to court documents.
The family brought her back to their spacious five-bedroom, two-story home,
decorated in the style of a Tuscan villa with a fountain of two angels
spouting water through a conch. She was told to sleep in the garage. It had no windows and was neither heated
nor air-conditioned. Soon after she arrived, the garage's only light bulb
went out. The Ibrahims didn't replace it. From then
on, Shyima lived in the dark. She was told to call them Madame Amal and Hajj Nasser, terms of respect. They called her
"shaghala," or servant. Their five
children called her "stupid." Human trafficking: the case of Egypt Ahmed Maged,
Daily News www.ecpat.net/EI/Resource_newsclippings.asp?id=600 [accessed 3 February 2011] THE SITUATION IN ‘Summer Brides’: Under-age daughters sold
as ‘sex-slaves’ in Egypt, report claims Al Arabiya News, 15 July 2012 english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/15/226546.html [accessed 16 July 2012] Egypt has laws in
place that aim to combat human trafficking which prevent foreigners from
marrying an Egyptian woman if there is more than ten years age difference,
but marriage brokers have found a way around that by forging birth
certificates to make the girls appear older and the men younger. These contracts also eliminate any
potential problems with hotels and land lords who may demand to see proof of
marriage before allowing a couple to stay in a room together, since
pre-marital sex is prohibited in Islam. In some cases the
men take the Egyptian girls back to their home country to work as maids for
their first wives. But even the girls who stay in Egypt do not fare much
better since they often become ostracized by society and find it difficult to
re-marry in the traditional way, particularly if the “summer marriage”
resulted in a child. Many abandon the
child out of shame, either to orphanages or leaving them to join the hundreds
of thousands of street children that already exist in Egypt. Dr. Hoda Badran, who chairs the NGO Alliance for Arab Women,
explained to the Sunday Independent that poverty is the main factor behind
this phenomenon. Picking on cotton Gamal Nkrumah, Al-Ahram
Weekly, Issue No. 905, 10 - 16 July
2008 weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/905/feature.htm [accessed 3 February 2011] Not only do landless
peasants earn a pittance working the land, but they are subjected to abuse, and no group more so than the children, the most
vulnerable members of society. Foremen in the fields subject the children to
violent beatings. Gangmasters recruit the children,
invariably the offspring of landless peasants and impoverished peasant
families. The parents of the child labourers are
desperately poor and are often all too relieved to part with their children.
In the final analysis, farming out one's children as indentured labourers mean fewer mouths to feed. In The www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=97097 [accessed 3 February 2011] Each day,
14-year-old Ali Abdel-Nasser works at a brick factory on the outskirts of Several of the
child workers in the area, interviewed by an Associated Press reporter on a
recent trip, said they had sometimes been beaten with wooden switches by
foremen at the factories, if the foremen thought the children were going too
slowly in their work. No foremen would
agree to be interviewed. But human rights groups and outside experts say
conditions for working children can vary greatly across Egypt — from
factories that provide meals and some basic schooling, to those that work
children long hours, often in scorching heat, and abuse or beat them. Organ trafficking: a fast-expanding black
market IHS Jane's, 05 March 2008 www.janes.com/news/publicsafety/jid/jid080305_1_n.shtml [accessed 3 February 2011] NGOs warn against plan to increase Russian
visas Ruth Eglash, The www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380635370&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] However, Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/egypt [accessed 26 June 2012] Human Rights
Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide www.hrw.org/middle-eastn-africa/egypt [accessed 3 February 2011] Library of Congress Call Number DT46 .E32
1991 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/egtoc.html [accessed 3 February 2011] Egyptian Journalists Trained to Report on
Child Labor Issues Internews Arabic Network,
April 14, 2004 www.internews.org/news/2004/20040414_egypt.html At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] Internews Arabic Network
held a training session in Liberian court tries Egyptian woman for
child trafficking www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=262519 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]
The Criminal Court
in Underage And Unprotected: Child Labor In Human Rights Watch Reports, www.hrw.org/reports/2001/egypt/Egypt01.htm#P46_655 [accessed 3 February 2011] SUMMARY - Each year over
one million children between the ages of seven and twelve are hired by Little Hands Do Neat Work Joanne McEwan, Islam Online, 11/06/2001 www.islamonline.net/english/Society/2001/06/article6.shtml At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] It is estimated
that around 1.2 million children swarm the Egyptian cotton fields in early
summer (Schemm, p.8). Most of them are below 12 years
of age and work up to 11 hours each day, thus impeaching Egypt's laws that
state that a child of 12 (the minimum working age) can only participate in a
six hour work day of seasonal agricultural work. Children not only toil under
the hot sun, but are beaten by the foreman and forced to work in fields that
have been sprayed with pesticides only pesticides only 24 - 48 hours earlier.
Yet these children play an important role in the labor intensive cotton
fields…being ideal in height and plentiful in number. Child Labor Douglas Jehl,
"King Cotton Exacts Tragic Toll From www.migrationint.com.au/ruralnews/budapest/oct_1997-17rmn.asp [accessed 3 February 2011] In Egypt, education
is supposed to be compulsory to the age of 15, but thousands of children as
young as age six pick cotton by hand in September for about $1.50 for an eight-hour
day. In September 1997, 31 children were killed when the flatbed government
truck taking them to a government-owned cotton field overturned. Egyptian law
prohibits employment under 12 in agriculture, and under 14 in nonfarm jobs.
However, these age limits are routinely violated, including by the
Agriculture Ministry, which owns 10 percent of the cotton fields in
Egypt. The Egyptian Center for Social
Research estimates that 1.5 million children in Child Labour Persists Around The World:
More Than 13 Percent Of Children 10-14 Are Employed International Labour Organisation (ILO)
News, www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/press-and-media-centre/news/WCMS_008058/lang--en/index.htm [accessed 4 September 2011] "Today's child
worker will be tomorrow's uneducated and untrained adult, forever trapped in grinding
poverty. No effort should be spared to break that vicious circle", says
ILO Director-General Michel Hansenne. Among the countries
with a high percentage of their children from 10-14 years in the work force
are: Mali, 54.5 percent; Burkina Faso, 51; Niger and Uganda, both 45; Kenya,
41.3; Senegal, 31.4; Bangladesh, 30.1; Nigeria, 25.8; Haiti, 25; Turkey, 24;
Côte d'Ivoire, 20.5; Pakistan, 17.7; Brazil, 16.1; India, 14.4; China, 11.6;
and Egypt, 11.2. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - |
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Torture in [Egypt] [other countries]Human Trafficking in [Egypt Street Children in [Egypt] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Egypt] [other countries]