The LCHR has issued report no. 51 of the Economic & Social Rights series monitoring violent events against children in Egypt in the first half of 2006. This report presents what has been published in this regard in the Egyptian newspapers during the first six months of 2006. The report shows that in this period there were 227 accidents that children faced in Egypt, 35 of them were sexual abuse inside or outside schools, 27 physical assaults, 43 household violence, 57 negligence in social, health and educational care, 5 violating the rights of working children, 6 delinquency accidents, 4 official violence, and 50 other various accidents.
These violent events were published in the Egyptian newspapers as follows: El Masry El Youm has published 53 articles, 36 in El Ahrar, 31 in El Wafd, 28 articles in Nahdet Masr, 20 in El Ahram, 12 in Rose El Yousif, 7 in El Naba'a, 5 in each of El Haqiqa and El Gamaheer, 4 in each of El Fajr and El Khamees, 3 in each of El Ommal and El Osboo'a, 2 in each of Saut El Omma and Geel El Ghad, Akhbar El Youm, El Ghad, El Masa'eya and El Karama, and one article in each of El Seyasy El Masry, El Akhbar, El Tagamo'a and Aalam El Seha..
These articles were published as follows: 35 articles in January, 30 in February, 34 in March, 39 in April, 45 in May, and 44 in June.
The report consists of several sections presented as follows:
The Preface Section presents the definition of violence and abuse practiced against children. This section also shows that beating children is the most common action to discipline children, as parents physically punish 38% of children in Egypt.
The First Section presents the form of sexual abuse practiced against children, which have reached 35 cases inside and outside schools and homes. For example: a janitor in one of the educational institutions has raped some girls in the school bathrooms, although he is 62 and the oldest girl was 7 years old. Another example: a driver decided to take revenge on his wife, who has succeeded in obtaining a divorce from him, by raping her 12 years old daughter "his stepdaughter", and then running away, but he was arrested. Another example: a man lures girls into fields, rapes them and threatens them that if they didn't steal money from their parents for him, he will expose their shame.
The Second Section presents the forms of physical assaults practiced against children, which have reached 27 cases. For example: a father found his son coming back from school, bleeding from his mouth and missing a few teeth, he discovered that the teacher beat up his son, which have led to opening his son's upper lip, which made him file a lawsuit against the teacher. Another example: a man lured a 3 years old child to a waterway, drowned him, and then buried him, as revenge from his father who borrowed 200 dollars from him and didn't payback the money. This man was arrested.
The Third Section presents household violence against children, which have reached 43 cases. This type of violence sometimes happen because of marital disputes, doubt in kinship, revenge, punishment or because of suffering from a mental illness. For example: a farmer slaughtered his niece with a cleaver while she was walking in the street, because she was working as a maid in the village houses to help support her family, and he was doubting her behavior.
The Fourth Section presents the forms of violence against working children, which have reached 5 cases. This type of violence is a result of mistreatment and the absence of the safety requirements. For example: a man beat up his 9 years old maid and pushed her hard against the wall, which made her unconscious, because of eating the food of his one year old daughter, when he took the maid to the hospital, she was already dead before the doctors could do anything, he claimed that a car ran her over when she was buying something for him, the doctors were suspicious, so they called the police, the man was arrested and he confessed to his crime.
The Fifth Section presents the types of negligence in social, health and educational care, which have reached 57 cases. For example: 25 children in an orphanage were poisoned as a result of eating a bad or spoiled meal, which have led to severe vomit and diarrhea cases among the children, the children were transferred to the hospital, where doctors found out that the food these children had was not suitable for human use, the doctors have informed the prosecution that has started investigating the matter. Another example: the negligence of a surgeon and an anesthetization doctor in performing a tonsillectomy to a small child, have led to damaging some parts of his brain, loosing consciousness for 26 days, then loosing sight, ability to walk and having continuous spasms. Another example: a teacher turned a school classroom into a prison cell, as he detained the students who didn't do their homework after school and prevented them from returning to their homes, which made one of them jump out of a window and causing himself severe broken bones, the kid was transferred to a hospital in a very bad condition, the prosecution has started investigating this matter.
The Sixth Section presents the cases of delinquency accidents, which have reached 6 cases. For example: a 15 years old child was arrested for stealing electrical cables.
The Seventh Section presents the cases of official violence against children, which have reached 4 cases. For example: the police have arrested a kid for stealing a cassette from a car, the kid was detained for 15 days, then the police sent for his father to come and collect him, the father was shocked to find his son dead, the policemen claimed that the boy died when one of the detainees fell on him, the father found bruises on his son's head, blood coming out of his left ear and wounds on his face.
The Eighth Section presents various types of children accidents, which have reached 50 cases. The most common type were road accidents, fire shots, a blazing house, gas leaks and collapsing houses. For example: 13 ram working children were riding a pickup truck, when the front tire suddenly blew up, which made the car turn over "capsize", leading to the death of these children.
The Ninth Section presents some recommendations that may lead to stopping violence against children, like:
· Guide and train journalists on how to deal with this phenomenon, by specifying a section in the newspaper for children accidents, showing how these accidents happened and how to avoid them in the future, and to teach people how to guarantee children's rights.
· Establish specialized units inside syndicates and parties to adopt children issues, support their rights and stop violence against them.
· Establish units inside Civil Society Organizations to protect and rehabilitate street children and support their rights.
· Children's rights to education, health and play must be guaranteed for free, either in schools, hospitals or in clubs and parks.
· Support poor families and guarantee their right to social security, suitable working opportunities, housing and public services, in order to raise their children properly
· The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood and Civil Society Organizations must work with rural Development Associations, in order to establish social care homes that can implement these recommendations under a national project in collaboration with governmental institutions to guarantee stopping violence against children.
· Punish all of those who bring harm to children, by issuing new laws that deter anyone from committing any violations against children.
LCHR calls all relevant officials and Ministries to implement these recommendations, in order to stop violence against children and guarantee them a safe and nonviolent future.
The full report will be published on our website as soon as we finish the translation.