WATANI International
4 July 2010
Human trafficking
The Egyptian parliament is currently discussing a law to ban the inhuman business of people trafficking, and a world-wide shame for the nations involved in a trade that uses women and children as its main resources and reaps profits of USD41 billion a year.
The concept of human trafficking differs from a country to another, but it is generally based on sexual misuse and prostitution. In Egypt, human trafficking encompasses child labour and underage marriage, which is to be found in specific villages where the price given depends on the age and looks of the girl. In some cases middlemen are involved, usually expecting to receive commission in advance.
The Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement (SMWIPM) has set up an international campaign under the slogan “Stop human trafficking now”.
Large families
In a recent workshop organised by the Ministry of Family and Population together with the SMWIPM, Minister of State for Family and Population Mushira Khattab said that a huge national effort has been exerted, but without being dragged under the title of human trafficking. These included campaigns such as ‘Protecting children in danger’ that struggled against child labour, drugs addiction and underage marriage.
“Population explosion is one of the main elements leading to human trafficking,” she added. Which is why the ministry has dedicated more efforts to encourage family planning. Families with a large number of children are easy targets for human traffickers.
Culture of informing
Some amendments are being made to the child law of 2008, such as raising the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18 from the current 16, and increasing the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years.
The penal code includes detailed descriptions about child trafficking aimed at preventing any kind of humiliation, prostitution or even scientific experimentation.
The child law stipulates a penalty of at least two years imprisonment and a minimum fine of EGP10,000 and a maximum fine of EGP50,000 for whoever has imported, issued, produced, prepared, shown, printed or propagated any pornographic substance relating to children or child sexual abuse.
Dr Khattab stressed the importance of promoting a “culture of informing” to activate the laws that protect children. There are several telephone help lines including the child hotline, 16000, and family counseling service, 16021, through which the ministry received reports of 9,300 cases of underage marriage in 2009. Sheikhs who perform such marriages are severely penalised, while the names of whistleblowers remain anonymous.
The workshop attendees agreed on some essential steps to fight human trafficking, such as registering all newborns; providing an opportunity for all children to receive education; calling families that push their children out to work to account; instantly reporting cases of rape; and working with enlightened clerics to make use of their local influence.
Role of the media
“The SMWIPM has worked on a huge campaign in the mass media to increase awareness of human trafficking especially on international satellite channels, and to urge businessmen to help fund residential centres for victims of trafficking,” said Nagwa Shoaib, the movement’s director.
In the workshop, journalists and prominent media people such as Ismaïl Khayrat, head of the Egyptian State Information Service, and the announcers Suzanne Hassan, Usama Mounir and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mahmoud Qabil, agreed that the major challenge they faced with media productions that would take into account battling human trafficking was that producers had their own agendas. These agendas did not necessarily give priority to social issues such as human trafficking. This highlighted the need to stress the social responsibility of the media. Some put forward the proposal to make 2011 ‘the year of struggling against human trafficking through the media’, and stressed the importance of not disclosing the names and identities of victims.