Egypt's prosecutor general has ordered a detained teenager known by the alias “Menna Abd El-Aziz,” who is well-known for her videos on the TikTok platform, be admitted to a rehabilitation centre designated for abused women. Abd El-Aziz, 17, was arrested on 26 May. She was ordered be detained for 15 days pending investigations over charges including inciting debauchery” and “forging an online account. She had said in a live Instagram video in May that one of her friends had raped, beaten and injured her, and pleaded for help from the government. Later, Abd El-Aziz appeared in an Instagram video with her alleged rapist and said she had made up with him, asserting that “people were trying to drive a wedge between them." According to an official statement on Tuesday, the prosecutor-general gave directions to confine Abd El-Aziz at one the Ministry of Social Solidarity's centres dedicated to hosting and protecting psychologically, socially and financially abused women, instead of in pre-trial detention. Abd El-Aziz accepted the centre as accommodation as she doesn't have a fixed and known abode, the statement added. The psychological and social state of the underage girl was examined by a social expert supervising the project of "hosting and protecting abused women" in Cairo and a mental expert at the ministerial program of "protecting homeless children and adults," per the prosecution's directives, in coordination with the Ministry of Social Solidarity and the National Council for Women. "The examination results showed that Abd El-Aziz has emotional and psychological disorders as a result of severe social crises she has gone through since childhood, a matter that drove her, with her lack of experience and weak personality, to form relationships with bad friends in lieu of her failure to make ordinary relationships," the statement added. "The examination suggested that Abd El-Aziz sought to achieve fame in exchange for what she went through ... she was deceived by a fame she attained in a virtual environment that threw her into bad company who exploited her," it said. She will be confined in the centre for three months, with renewal of that term if needed.
