The Egyptian perspective

"Making the world fit for children" is decidedly a noble goal. Why then is the Children's summit currently being held in New York beset by so much dissention? Negar Azimi reviews the controversy and reports on the Egyptian position
The official Egyptian delegation to the UN Special Session, headed by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, has been touted as highly representative, comprising four members of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) community, one parliamentarian, seven members of the National Council on Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), representatives from the media, as well as the members of the permanent Egyptian delegation to the United Nations. In the meantime, a number of NGOs have played a consultative role in preparing contributions to the outcome document -- at both the national and regional levels.
Throughout the consultative meetings leading up to this week's session, efforts were made to involve NGOs and members of civil society through upwards of 100 consultative meetings over the course of the last year. Ambassador Moushira Khattab, secretary-general of the NCCM, explained in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, "the Egyptian report was prepared through a highly participatory process in which NGOs were on equal footing with the government ... there was a strong sense of ownership as a result."
Nevertheless, some counter that the constitution of the both the official delegation and the members of the preparatory consultative meetings remained highly political, and in the end, anything but representative in nature. Fatma Khafagi, former programme officer for UNICEF and a leading women and children's rights activist told the Weekly, "I think there is a government selection of NGOs according to certain criteria that the NCCM and government decree fit ... it is never going to be open to everyone, especially when they are keen on having a unified view."
In the whole of Egypt today, there are more than 75 organisations that have children as part of their respective mandates.
And of course, much like a microcosm of the larger- scale international meeting, disagreement abounded. Indeed, sentiment was anything but uniform in Egypt and the region. The matter of reproductive health, in particular, brought to the surface a wide range of differences. Essam Ali, an unofficial delegate to the UN Special Session and a member of the NGO Coalition on the Rights of the Child, reflected such diversity through his comments during preliminary regional talks in June. Ali repeatedly noted that reproductive health, sexual education and early marriage are "central issues" in the regional context. Nevertheless, some representatives from Gulf states, for example, did not share his opinion, maintaining that a dominant ethos of "Islamic family values" must be observed in the UN Special Session, and furthermore, in the realm of children's rights in general.
At the same meeting, Arwa El-Deram, a Yemeni delegate from the Society for the Development of Women and Children argued, "We should tell them [children] that they are not supposed to have sex until they get married." Others have agreed, tending to advocate a final outcome document that would reflect dominant moral and religious trends. Says Ambassador Khattab of the NCCM: "There must be room for cultural sensitivities because if the plan does not make room for these concerns, it will not be followed. Remember, this is an optional document. If there is no sense of ownership, it will not be implemented."
In the end, Egypt and the region as a whole have leaned toward the conservative in matters relating to reproductive health rights and sex education, not acknowledging the existence of premarital sexual activities and instead, much like the remarkably conservative American delegation, advocating abstinence.
Refugee children, furthermore, were hardly broached as an issue.
According to Magdy Garas, co-director of CARITAS Egypt, there is little tradition of granting rights to refugee children in Egypt, despite the presence of thousands of Sudanese, Somalis, Ethiopians, among myriad others. "We tend to refugee children as part of our work at CARITAS, and also fund initiatives at churches such as Sakakini in Abbasiya, but there is still little."
Barbara Harrell-Bond, distinguished visiting professor at the American University in Cairo and an authority on refugee issues, concurs. "Refugee children are the forgotten children even though they are specifically mentioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Few NGOs and governments have taken responsibility and as a consequence, untold thousands of refugee children are growing up without access to adequate education -- and this is not only in Egypt."
Throughout the negotiations in preparation for the UN Special Session, the whole of the Middle East has been assailed as obstructive, hindering the progress of preparatory meetings (deemed PREPCOM), and largely being at odds with the orientations of other participants. Controversial issues tended to relate to matters of child labour, reproductive health rights, the definition of "the family," as well as the role of overseas development assistance (ODA).
In regard to child labour, specifically, the Egyptian delegation remained cognizant that a significant percentage of the work force in the country relies on under-age labour. Some went as far as to deem dominant international child labour conventions "weapons" used against the developing world in international trade; such an orientation was largely reflected in the Egyptian negotiations. People working in NGOs both in Egypt and abroad charged that Egyptian children employed by cotton-farming cooperatives work long hours, routinely face beatings at the hands of foremen, and are poorly protected against pesticides and heat. Most of the children, they continue, are also well below the country's legal minimum age of 12 for seasonal agricultural work and are thus at odds with 1996's Child Law.
Also contentious was the question of ODA as Egypt, among other developing countries, argued ardently that levels were too low (numbers have dropped consistently since the 1990s) to facilitate substantive change in the realm of children's rights. Debt relief, it was argued, is also slow, insufficient, and too few countries are in fact eligible. Developed countries, in turn, countered that developing countries channelled too much of their respective budgets to military spending, among other auxiliary activities.
Nevertheless, in the end, the Middle East countries largely avoided controversial matters in their recommendations, issuing broad statements and instead focusing on the protection of children affected by foreign occupation and economic sanctions -- two issues that are unequivocally relevant to the regional context. Needless to say, both issues garner nearly unanimous support from Arab NGOs.
Still, others, including Khafagi, continue by arguing that even in Egypt, not enough has been done to safeguard the region's own children through preparation for the session. Khafagi notes: "I would have expected more on the Egyptian agenda on the rights of the Palestinian child." She continues: "I think the whole credibility of the UN is at stake after what happened in Palestine ... if this session is to address the needs of every child, then what about the Palestinian children? There is still much to be done."
Egypt has served as host to two international conferences on children's rights in the past year, one Arab and the other African in focus.
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