CAIRO: An Egyptian report published earlier this month by the Unit for the Prevention of Trafficking Children of the ministry of state for family and population, revealed the many challenges facing this growing phenomenon. The report said there is a new subculture of brokers existing in Egypt that are promoting the benefits of marrying off underage girls, but the statistics remain the government's biggest shortcoming. There is little “accurate information about the size of the actual and the various dimensions of the issue of child trafficking at the domestic and international levels in Egypt because it is a secret trade that takes place.” The ministry's report noted that it is difficult even to call it a phenomenon due to the overall lack of quantified statistics. However, the report said Egypt is attempting to prevent trafficking “due to the success of brokers and this is one of the top priorities” of the ministry. The report, which was conducted from June 2009 to June 2010, said “there were no controls to regulate the employment of children and domestic workers, despite the adoption of the Children Act and that there were no accurate statistics available on them in addition to child labor, which is one of the issues intertwined with the issue of trafficking in children, marriage and require coordination with various parties.” Yussra Abdel-Ghany, a ministry spokeswoman in Alexandria, told Bikya Masr that in order to fully gauge the situation, “we must start to correlate all the available information into hard facts so we and other institutions know how to tackle the issue.” She added that the use of hotlines has “increased dramatically and this is a sign that the problem is not going away and that there are many young girls out there that need our help.” Although the issue, the ministry said, of trafficking in children “represents a crime against humanity and modern slavery and is difficult to combat, however, a minimum level of data and indicators on the size of each form of trafficking and distribution of geographic location is necessary to combat such crime.” The available data collected by the ministry in coordination with the ministry of interior, ministry of tourism and the general prosecutor reveal there are “major efforts to educate populations on participation in civil society in the fight against the trafficking of children, especially in rehabilitation and legal support.” The Unit seeks to follow up the implementation of the national plan to prevent child trafficking and the implementation of studies and surveys to determine the size of child trafficking with regard to the marriage of minors in some governorates. In addition to cooperation with the International Organization for Migration and civil society organizations for the rehabilitation of victims and the establishment of clinics for legal advice, the ministry believes trafficking can be “greatly curtailed.” On the other hand, the same report said that the unit recently completed the establishment and maintenance of a specialized center and library on trafficking in persons and children as a reference for researchers. The Unit issued a number of manuals dealing with subjects on trafficking in children, such as ensuring the safety of newborns, which was distributed to maternity hospitals and care centers for mothers and children, and anti-child marriage in Arabic and English, in addition to the activities of a rehabilitation center for child victims. The Unit is also producing a guide for indicators to identify the victims and ways to help them in accordance with national and international standards, and aims to raise awareness of those versions ways to prevent child trafficking. Abdel-Ghani believes these are important steps toward creating a new outlook on the way Egyptians view girls. “We have to start by changing how society perceives women. If we can't accomplish this, then we will be facing the same problems next year, five years from now or more,” she said. BM
