June 5, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

Right now the Egyptian People’s Assembly is debating amendments to Child Law 12 of 1996. As you know, Together for Family Development Network (TFD), the Presbyterian Hunger Program's international Joining Hands network that I work with, has been advocating to change Egyptian Child Law 12 of 1996 so that the law clearly states that children with disability have the right to a free, quality public education. An estimated 98 percent of Egyptian children with disabilities do not receive education or any other services. Professionals indicate about 85 percent of these children can be included in public education, but in Egypt, the school principals generally refuse to admit them.

The TFD-fostered amendment is part of a package of many other amendments meant to strengthen child rights in Egypt. The package was approved in the Egyptian Shura Council in April with minor changes. Then they were introduced to the Legislative Committee of the People’s Assembly in late May. The Legislative Committee made extensive changes to some of the proposed amendments. Praise God it did not dilute the amendments related to children with disability.

This week the package of amendments, which includes more than 100 articles, is under discussion in the People’s Assembly. As of June 10, about one third of the articles have been discussed.

The following is an article from Al Ahram, an English-language newspaper that reports on the amendments and the changes made by the Legislative Committee. I think you will find the perspectives voiced in the article informative—and probably surprising.

The People's Assembly Legislative Committee debated the new child draft law proposed by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) in a heated session last week, with committee members replicating the divisions which occurred during the bill's first reading. Then members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) had joined with Muslim Brotherhood MPs in demanding amendments to the draft law which seeks to criminalise Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the physical abuse of children, and increase the legal age for marriage .

Critics of the draft law claimed that it was attempting to outlaw practices that are common in Egyptian society. In Legislative Committee hearings they watered down the provisions in the draft law. Mandatory fines of between LE1,000 and LE5,000 and prison sentences of between three months and two years for anyone found guilty of FGM have now been removed from the draft. The position of Mohamed El-Omda was typical of MPs. Despite insisting that while, personally, he was opposed to FGM, he argued that “people should not be punished for practising their customs and traditions.

“If we apply prison sentences everyone in Upper Egypt will end up in prison,” he said. Outlawing female circumcision and punishing parents for the physical abuse of their children are “ideas imported from the West” and will lead to dysfunctional families….

Khalil Mustafa, advisor to the NCCM, criticised the alliance between Muslim Brotherhood MPs, the ruling NDP and some independents. “A narrow-minded religious rhetoric” had been imposed on the new law, he said, by those who represent the most reactionary strain within Egypt’s political class.

“The draft law has become a battleground between those promoting a longed-for modern state and those seeking to preserve an obsolete status quo,” he said. The ban on FGM, he pointed out, had been approved by Al-Azhar and leading Islamic scholars, including Youssef El-Qaradawi and Mohamed Selim El-Awwa. In recent years the public has become increasingly aware of the dangers of the practice and the time is ripe, he argued, to try and eradicate it through legal measures.

The committee also insisted on changes to the draft provision that would have allowed mothers to give children their own name in cases where the father refuses to acknowledge paternity or where the name of the father is unknown. Previously, such children had existed in a legalistic limbo: without the father’s name, no birth certificate could be issued and without a birth certificate as far as the state is concerned the child does not exist. Now, rather than give the child their own name, as the draft had suggested, mothers will be allowed to fill in the blank on the birth certificate with an invented name which will then be registered at their local police station.

The new draft law also makes DNA testing mandatory in lawsuits where paternity is contested.

(By Reem Leila, Al Ahram Weekly 22-28 May 2008.)

Thank you for your interest and support.

Nancy Collins

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 324