Public Prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud called on Child Prosecution members not to rush to send children to prison, saying such a decision must be taken only after all other alternatives, such as scolding them and sending them to hospitals, have run out. He said this aimed to guarantee the best interest of the child, especially as the current institutions need to be reformed so that children do not end up committing crimes. Speaking during the last training course for the members of child prosecutions, Counselor Mahmoud pointed out that applying the law in an open-minded way, in line with the philosophy of the amendments of the Child Law No. 126 of 2008, compensated the legislative shortages of the law. He said it was important for child prosecutions to adopt a different style than the one of other prosecutions, saying that children had to be dealt with as the aggrieved party and not as the culprit, as the environmental and societal conditions surrounding them push them to delinquency. He also stressed the importance of following the concepts mentioned in the books on countering child trafficking and female genital mutilation (FGM). Ambassador Mushira Khattab, Secretary General of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), said that a hot line would be set up for members of child prosecutions and that it would be an offshoot of the child safety line (16000). She said this hot line would facilitate procedures and allow taking quick decisions guaranteeing the best interests of the child. According to her, there are very weak – almost inexistent - alternatives to detention, so the NCCM is trying to come up with good alternatives so that judges can take their decisions and at the same time guarantee that children are protected. She affirmed that the NCCM was not defending crimes or turning a blind eye on them, but it was trying to keep children away from them. She urged prosecution members to give priority to the best interests of the child when taking their decisions and preparing detailed files about the reasons why children tend to delinquency and the way to tackle this problem. She also explained that children facing criminal procedures were in conflict with the law but not criminals. Indeed, she said they were children at risk as well as victims of bad social conditions and their families' neglect. She said the Child Law was amended so that children were not perceived as criminals or on their way to becoming criminals, as such amendments introduced new mechanisms to protect children from risks. She said such mechanisms were the General Department of Child Safety and childhood protection committees. She added that the Child Law no. 126 is the only one in Egypt's history for which an executive work plan with a timeframe has been set. She also affirmed that this law needed to be amended "when we realized that we had failed to protect an important bracket of these children. So these amendments have left a mark concerning Egypt's legal obligations toward its children", as – she admitted – these children have legal rights.
