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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Children for sale
By Salama Ahmed Salama
Political rancour between certain members of the People's Assembly and the governor of Menoufiya helped disclose a horrific crime, but we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. The crime involves abandoned children and orphans placed in the care of state institutions and foster homes. Once all the facts are revealed, it will become evident that the case is not about financial wrongdoing or mismanagement. Nor is the point the offences committed by a few reckless people engaged in social work to make money while claiming to help needy children. The issue here is the absence of any system to protect children from people who buy and sell human beings, exploit legal loopholes, and take advantage of the prevailing laxity.
A bevy of corrupt government administrations with complicated and overlapping functions provides the ideal environment for such crimes. The administrations include the birth and death registration offices of the Ministry of Health, the civil registry department of the Ministry of Interior (responsible for registering births and issuing birth and nationality certificates) and the Ministry of Social Affairs, which is mandated to supervise institutions for the care and protection of children.
Abandoned children dumped on the street are vulnerable to physical danger, but are also stigmatised by society on religious and moral grounds. Children under 10 may not be ideal targets for the theft of organs (which are then sold to rich patients) -- the crime with which certain representatives of the People's Assembly have charged the governor of Menoufiya; furthermore, organ transplants in Egypt are not so advanced that such operations can be performed in utter secrecy. But the undisputed fact is that children -- whether or not they are physically or mentally handicapped -- are the best-selling contraband commodities on the world market. Children in difficult social conditions are forced into prostitution, exploited in drug trafficking and smuggling, used in pornographic films...
An investigation has been triggered by the parliamentarians' charges, and it must take its course; but I would like to call attention to the despicable conditions prevailing in institutions responsible for the protection of children. Foster families often serve as clearing-houses in this respect. Islam prohibits adoption, yet the law makes room for foster families permitted to take children into their care. Children taken into such families can only be safe if rigorous security, social and medical controls are applied by the three government authorities concerned. But without this control, children become vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
The conditions prevailing in a single institution in Menoufiya are terrifying; what, then, may be happening behind officials' backs in similar institutions all over the country? A study conducted by an independent and well-reputed scientific institution, such as the National Centre for Social and Criminological Studies, is urgently needed. It could suggest the measures required to guarantee the welfare of thousands of children deprived of parental care. Government resources are incapable of providing such care, and we cannot leave children in the care of unsupervised institutions or individuals. Until the true numbers of abused children and the names of the institutions involved are disclosed, however, the magnitude of the problem will remain a mystery.
