The Maadi child molestation case breaks the silence on the sexual abuse of children. Lina Mahmoud investigates Last Saturday the prosecutor-general abruptly announced the closure of the child molestation case in Norhan Nursery in Maadi on the grounds of insufficient evidence after medical examinations revealed that the children had not been raped by the accused men, nursery owner Ismael Mohammed, and teachers Ayman El-Basha and Essam Imam. The announcement came as a surprising turn in the case. Two days before a judge had ordered that the suspects be detained for 30 days pending investigations. The sudden shift has left many parties shocked. Adel Badr, of the Egyptian Centre for the Rights of the Child (ECRC) spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly : "How come they decide to put them in prison for a month today and set them free tomorrow? It appears to be a political decision. We will file a complaint at the prosecutor-general's for the case to be reopened." The father of one of the allegedly abused children voiced his concern to the Weekly on condition of anonymity. "Suddenly, we became the criminals and not the victims," he said. "What am I going to do now? My child needs rehabilitation. He also needs to see justice done. How come they don't believe an innocent child?" Moushira Khattab, secretary-general of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) expressed her concern at the situation: "We should believe the children or else they will be intimidated and will not report such a thing again," she told the Weekly. "Children don't lie. We should trust a child's testimony more than a medical examination conducted days after the incident." While she stressed her respect for the judge and his decision, Khattab voiced concern over the situation nationally. Whatever the outcome of the Maadi case, she said, the fact is that Egypt has a problem it must confront. "It is time for society to be more transparent in dealing with the issue of child abuse," she said. "We have sexual abuse not because we are less religious but because it happens everywhere in the world. We have sick people and until we look at reasons for their problems we should teach our children what improper touching is," she said, asserting the importance of sex education at an early age. Abuse of any kind has long been sidelined within public debate -- a taboo too touchy to address. The Maadi incident, however, was too shocking for the press and public to ignore. A few days after reports about the incident were published in the papers Khattab held a meeting to discuss sexual abuse in nurseries. Members of the NCCM attended alongside journalists and child education specialists. "We should break the silence on these issues by protecting the victims and exposing the perpetrators," Khattab said, suggesting that only women be allowed to work in pre-schools and primary education. The NCCM proposed a plan to amend existing laws to ensure reform. There is concern, however, voiced in the press, that existing laws are not enforced. Any Egyptian citizen who does not have a criminal file can open a nursery. There are currently 9,076 nurseries in Egypt serving 591,428 children. All nurseries must be licensed by the Ministry of Social Affairs (MSA). Sixty per cent of nurseries are run by civil society organisations while the other 40 per cent are private businesses, as was the Maadi nursery. Badr argues that while doing his research on the violation of children's rights he has seen many nurseries that "are no more than one dark room crammed with children. If one of them is sick then you can be sure all the rest will be sick," Badr told Al-Ahram Weekly. Hani Hilal, director of the ECRC explains that "part of the problem is that a nursery is regarded as a place where parents put their children because they are working and they can't leave the child alone at home. This idea has to be changed. Pre-school care should be seen as an essential part of the educational process." "The state is responsible for this crime. The state is responsible for protecting children and this is written in the law and constitution," Hilal said. No governmental institution, he points out, has been helpful in the Maadi case. No rehabilitation has been offered and the government appears to want to pretend that nothing has happened. Officials at the MSA, for their part, refuse any blame. Moufida Abdallah, director of the Family and Child Administration at the MSA argued that "the family is the only responsible party in this issue. If the mother didn't discover that her child was molested, how are we supposed to find out?" Abdallah Mansour, child psychiatrist at the El- Nadim Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence explains that "the problem is that institutions where sexual abuse happens are places that are not questioned. They are protected by law. These are schools, families, and social child care institutions such as nurseries." Mansour believes that the Maadi case was different because some families bravely spoke out. "But usually people don't. They deny what they know happens and that leads to suppression. This causes psychological problems for children," Mansour said. "We need to create mechanisms to ensure that children enjoy their rights in these institutions and guarantee their safety," he added. According to Khaled Montasser, a dermatology consultant in the Suez Canal Authority, incestuous relationships are the most widespread form of child sexual abuse. Children are usually afraid to complain because the older members of the family who harass them have authority in the family. According to the Ministry of Interior, there were 46 reported crimes of boys being raped and 56 cases involving girls. But many argue that these numbers indicate just how much a taboo rape, and sex in general, is. "The cases that come to the doctors are very few and they come at a very late stage. Moreover patients are not frank about it and are very embarrassed. The whole atmosphere is one of uneasiness. Worse, many doctors are becoming morally judgmental. They look at the patients as guilty parties and they fail to treat them," says Montasser. Children constitute 45 per cent of the Egyptian population. There are two million street children and one million working children. According to the 2003 UNICEF Report on Childhood and Motherhood in Egypt 52 per cent of the street children in Cairo and Alexandria told researchers in interviews that they suffer physical abuse. The report stated that 50 per cent cited "rape" as one of the abuses faced on the streets. Mansour reminds us that the Maadi nursery incident should be used to raise public awareness over the scale of the problem.
