A recent round of discussions held by the NGO network “Together for the development of the family” reviewed proposed amendments to Egypt’s child law, to be presented to Parliament shortly.
The proposals for the new child law include raising the age of criminal responsibility for children, raising the minimum age of marriage for both males and females to 18 years, making pre-marriage medical checkup mandatory, harsher penalties for perpetrators of violence against children especially if the victims are in their care, and outlawing female circumcision or FGM (female genital mutilation).
The discussions called for more interaction between civil society organisations and the official authorities to secure a better future for the Egyptian child. To reach the public, the NCCM and non-governmental organisations convened meetings in several governorates where a primary draft of the proposals was discussed and brought to its final form.
Necessary change
Khalil Mustafa Khalil, a judge and the legal consultant of The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), said: “The proposed amendments already exist in international treaties, which means that they correspond to the existing constitution.”
Mr Khalil said some may wonder why they were aiming to change the existing child law of 1996, but the previous law did not include legislation about street children, violence against children and trafficking in children. When Parliament debated the 1996 law, members turned down the article relating to pre-marriage medical checkup, while female circumcision was then a taboo subject which no one dared broach. Now opinion has changed and both these ideas were accepted, with the FGM issue widely covered in the media. But views on FGM remain widely divergent, ranging from endorsement of banning the practice to absolutely defending it. Some opinions tend to sideline the issue and underestimate its shattering consequences, while others condemn the call to ban FGM, branding it as a foreign conspiracy against our values of chastity, or at best a new, exotic trend of thought.
Children’s rights
In addition to the proposed amendments, Khalil added the child’s right to a specific nationality in line with his or her parents’, the right of registration on the Civil Register and for nursery care and a good education with specialised supervisors. He affirmed the necessity of never preventing an imprisoned mother from seeing her child, establishing nurseries in women’s prisons, and not executing a condemned mother until her child is two years old. Khalil also called for applying firm penalties for parents who prevent their children from going to school, banning the employment of children until they reach working age, securing well-paid jobs for mothers so as not to let their children work early, banning the imprisonment of children with adults, outlawing the exploitation of children for licentious matters or publishing their photographs on the Internet. The child law amendments aim mainly at protecting the child from all types of danger in addition to rescuing him or her from social threats.
The project settled on penalties for those who do not report cases of threats or violence against a child or have not helped him or her when in a position of authority.
The draft also outlined the government’s responsibility for applying procedures to help disabled children interact in all fields of society and widen their privileges, also penalising those who place hindrances in their paths. It has been advocated that wheelchair access be the norm in public buildings.
Very long time
Invited to the discussion were eighty-eight members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the only parliamentary members expected to oppose the suggested amendments. However they declined to attend, as the meeting conflicted with a demonstration they had already scheduled against government policies. Despite this, Adel Badr who is a member of the networking group met several MB members to talk over the problems. He reported that they had “almost agreed”, but said they had not known about the child law amendments and that they would need a “very long time” to debate them.
The picture is of Bodour Shaker, 12, who died last year as the result of an FGM operation. The doctor who conducted the operation will be tried this month.