To Better Know a Country: Human Trafficking in Egypt

by Amanda Kloer

categories: Human Trafficking in Europe and the Middle East, To Better Know A Country

Published October 21, 2009 @ 08:56AM PT

Every year, the U.S. State Department releases a Trafficking in Persons report which rates countries on their efforts to combat human trafficking.  Each week, I'll be providing a brief glance at human trafficking in one of those countries, based off the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report, with my own (often snarky) analysis added.  This is just a snapshot of what's going on in the country.  For more information, you can check out the full text of the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report here.

This Week's Country..... Egypt

Basic Stats

• Ranking: Tier 2 Watch List
• Status: Source, transit, and destination country for trafficking victims
• Political Stability: Stellar compared to other countries in the region, but still about two fava bean shortages away from revolution
• Cash Flow: Could be worse, at least Europeans can still afford to see the pyramids.
• Do I Think They Care?: Some Egyptians are try to, but it's a real battle.

Who Are the Victims and What Are They Doing?

• Women:commercial sex, forced labor
• Girls: commercial sex, domestic and agricultural forced labor, begging, forced marriages, child sex tourism
• Boys: domestic and agricultural forced labor, begging, child sex tourism

Where Are They Coming From and Where Are They Going?

• Victims are trafficked from Sudan and other parts of Africa to Egypt.
• Victims from Uzbekistan, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, and other Eastern European countries are trafficked through Egypt to Israel for sexual exploitation.
• Egyptian children are trafficked internally.

What's Gotta Happen

• Substantially increase law enforcement activity against trafficking.
• Draft and enact legislation criminalizing all forms of human trafficking.
• Create a formal victim identification procedure.
• Implement a information campaign to educate the public on trafficking.

What Can I Do

• You can support Coptic Orphans, an organization which helps children in need in Egypt, especially girls who are vulnerable to human trafficking.

In summary, Egypt is doing that whole democracy and rights of women things a lot more than some of it's neighbors <cough> Saudi Arabia <cough>. But they still have a long ways to go to get off the Tier 2 Watch List, where they've been for awhile. But in general, Egypt's attitude towards human rights can really be summed up by this joke,

The President of Egypt dies and goes to hell and is greeted by the devil. The devil says to him, “Since you were a leader of a country for many years, I’ll allow you to choose which room you’re tortured in for the rest of eternity.” Mubarak walks down a corridor with doors on either side, opens the first door and inquires what type of torture he would endure. The man at the door says, “You’re tortured for eight hours with burning flames, eight hours of hot oil and eight hours in boiling water.” Thinking he should try his luck elsewhere, Mubarak opens each door on the corridor and finds similar replies. He comes to the final door. The man says he will endure twelve hours of torture on a terrible looking machine, followed by another twelve hours in a burning tub of oil. Mubarak tells him that sounds terrible, and he thinks he’ll just stick with the first door he opened. The man leans in and whispers, “No sir, this is the Egyptian room, the supplies of oil are never delivered on time and our torture machines never work.”