Doaa El-Bey reviews reaction to the US state department's Trafficking in Persons Report 2009 The Trafficking in Persons Report released last week placed Egypt in its Tier 2 category of countries on the grounds that "the government did not show adequate progress in advancing anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts over the last year". Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki stressed that while Egypt is working to combat human trafficking it rejected, on principle, any attempts by foreign states to judge its performance. The report did mention Mrs Suzanne Mubarak's efforts to draw attention to the phenomenon, stating that her "anti-trafficking advocacy during the reporting period [8 June to 9 May] led to a substantial increase in press coverage on the subject." Zaki also pointed out that the National Coordinating Committee to Combat and Prevent Trafficking in Persons, headed by the Foreign Minister, is about to finalise a draft resolution. Minister of State for Family and Population Mushira Khattab said the report was "unbalanced". "Egypt does not hide its problems or deny them and welcomes constructive criticism, but the country that prepares such reports should perhaps begin by evaluating its own situation before evaluating others." "Egypt is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and sexual exploitation. Some of Egypt's estimated one million street children -- both boys and girls -- are exploited in prostitution and forced begging, sometimes by local gangs," the report's Egypt section began. The report also criticised the exploitation of children recruited for domestic and agricultural labour where they suffer "conditions indicative of involuntary servitude, such as restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical or sexual abuse. In addition wealthy men from the Gulf reportedly travel to Egypt to purchase 'temporary marriages' with Egyptian females, including girls who are under the age of 18; these arrangements are often facilitated by the females' parents and marriage brokers. Child sex tourism is increasingly reported in Cairo, Alexandria and Luxor. Young female Sudanese refugees, including those under 18, may be coerced into prostitution." The report also identified Egypt as "a transit country for women trafficked from Uzbekistan, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, and other Eastern European countries to Israel for sexual exploitation; organised crime groups are involved in these movements". However, the report added, Egypt is making efforts to eliminate trafficking: in June last year the government enacted amendments to the Child Law (126/2008), prohibiting child trafficking; it "provided training for government officials on the use of these amendments; and began the prosecution of several alleged sex trafficking offenders". In September 2008, the National Coordinating Committee to Combat and Prevent Trafficking in Persons began drafting a comprehensive anti- trafficking law. The government still lacks formal victim identification procedures and protection services and "some victims of trafficking are punished for acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked". The government is also accused of taking "minimal steps to combat the serious issues of child sex tourism and the involuntary domestic servitude of children or to raise awareness of trafficking among the general public". The report included several recommendations: "substantially increase law enforcement activity against trafficking, including the growing problems of the involuntary domestic servitude of children and child sex trafficking; draft and enact legislation criminalising all forms of human trafficking... and implement a comprehensive public information campaign to educate the public on the definition and dangers of trafficking." The report described progress made to protect victims of trafficking during the last year as minimal. It identified some steps, such as drop in centres run by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, and rehabilitation programmes for street children developed under the auspices of the National Council of Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), as positive. Yet it noted "specialised care for adults or foreign victims, including Sudanese women in forced prostitution, was not provided. Despite receiving training in victim identification, the government did not employ formal procedures to identify victims of trafficking and refer them to providers of care; as a result, trafficking victims, including street children and women arrested for prostitution, were often treated as criminals rather than victims. In prisons or detention centres, law enforcement officers may have further mistreated these victims through verbal, physical, and sexual abuse." Official attempts at prevention were also reported as "minimal": "The National Centre for Criminological and Social Research officially began a comprehensive study on the scope of trafficking in Egypt. In November 2008, the National Council for Human Rights held a seminar and a roundtable discussion on human trafficking. During the second half of 2008, NCCM trained 107 social workers, 35 health inspectors, and 191 officials from various ministries on the Child Law's amendments..." "Nonetheless, the government did not institute any public campaigns to raise awareness on trafficking and made no discernible efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts or to raise awareness of sex tourism." The Trafficking in Persons Report is issued every year by the US State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. This year's report included 175 nations. It is regarded as the most comprehensive worldwide report on the efforts of governments to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons. Its findings are supposed to raise global awareness and spur countries to take effective actions to counter the growing phenomenon.
