egypt: Mass Arrests of Street Children

Mass Arrests of Street Children in Egypt
Beatings, Sexual Abuse Common in Police Custody

(Cairo, February 19, 2003) - The Egyptian government conducts mass
arrest campaigns of children whose "crime" is that they are in need of
protection, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
Children in police custody face beatings, sexual abuse and extortion by
police and adult criminal suspects, and police routinely deny them
access to food, bedding and medical care.

More than 25 percent of all children arrested in Egypt in 2001 were
children considered "vulnerable to delinquency" under Egypt's Child
Law. They have committed no crime, and are typically homeless, beggars
or truants from school. Police often use the charge as a pretext to
clear the streets of children, extort money and information, force
children to move on to other neighborhoods, and bring children in for
questioning in the absence of evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

"The government says it arrests children to protect them," said Clarisa
Bencomo, researcher in Human Rights Watch's Children's Rights Division.
"The reality is that most of these children are back on the street
within a week, in even worse shape than before. Instead of protecting
children, the police abuse them and steal whatever money they have."

The 87-page report, "Charged with Being Children: Egyptian Police Abuse
of Children in Need of Protection," draws on interviews with dozens of
Egyptian children living or working on the street, as well as police,
prosecutors, social workers and judges in the juvenile justice system.

Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to immediately end
its policies of arresting children it deems "vulnerable to delinquency"
and of routinely detaining children in police lockups. Egypt should also
designate a full time position in the Ministry of Justice to oversee
investigations of torture and ill-treatment of children in police
custody.

Human Rights Watch found that police in Cairo routinely beat children
with batons, whips, rubber hoses and belts, and transport them in
dangerous vehicles, often with adult detainees. Children held in
overcrowded and dirty adult police lockups must bribe guards or beg from
criminal detainees to obtain food and bedding. Children who are
transferred to the overcrowded al Azbekiya juvenile police lockup
receive only marginally better treatment, and may be detained with
children significantly older or who have committed serious crimes.

"Children are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse, both in and out
of custody," said Bencomo.

Police at adult and juvenile police lockups use degrading sexual
language to humiliate both boys and girls, and do not protect children
from attacks by adult detainees. In interviews, girls singled out police
at the al Azbekiya juvenile police lockup and an adult police lockup as
being notorious for sexual abuse and violence against girls detained
there. Girls also reported feeling pressure to engage in sexual
relations with police on the street as the only way to obtain police
protection from sexual violence by other men.

Despite the widespread and systematic violations of the rights of
children in police custody, Egyptian authorities do not routinely
monitor conditions of detention for children, investigate cases of
arbitrary arrests or abuse in custody, or appropriately discipline those
responsible. In many cases, children are detained illegally for days
before going before the public prosecutor, and in some cases children
are arrested and released without ever leaving the police station.
Police often do not notify children's parents about arrests, and
children who have fled parental abuse or who lack guardians have no one
to turn to for assistance.

"Ministry of Interior officials, prosecutors, judges, and government
social workers all know that these children are being abused -- but no
one does anything to prevent it," Bencomo said. "The government would
rather keep these children out of sight than address the underlying
issues that forced children onto the streets in the first place."

The vast majority of children Human Rights Watch interviewed were living
or working on the street because they had no other choice.

Human Rights Watch calls on the Egyptian government to ensure these
children receive the special protection and assistance they are entitled
to under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to ensure that
arrest, detention or imprisonment are used only for children charged
with criminal acts, and should always be a measure of last resort, and
for the shortest possible time.

The report is online at: http://hrw.org/reports/2003/egypt0203/

---------------------------------
Voices of Egypt's Street Children
Selected Children's Accounts
Names of children have been changed to protect their privacy.

Sexual Abuse and Violence
"The guard here says, 'You are a woman [sexually].' He keeps saying that
to me. I keep saying, 'No, I'm a girl [i.e. a virgin].' Yesterday, he
said, 'If you are really a girl, take your clothes off so we can examine
you.' Then he grabbed my breasts, but I hit him."
-Warda N., sixteen

"The guards at the [Sahel police] station curse us with curses about our
mothers and so sometimes they hit us. My mother is dead so I don't let
anyone curse her. If the guards do curse me I curse them back. Sometimes
the guard tells the officer, and then the officer hits me. Twice the
officer has done this-it is the same one. He curses me and makes me
stand while he hits me with a stick. When I fall to the ground he makes
me stand again. He hits me all over my body-from my head to my feet."
-Amal A., sixteen

Police Abuse and Detention Conditions
"The government is oppressive. The police insult me and mistreat me.
About four or five days ago the police grabbed me. I spent one night at
the adult police station, not at [the juvenile section of] al Azbekiya.
At the police station an officer hit me with a fist on my back, one
blow. He didn't say anything. Then they made an investigative report and
took me to the lockup. The cell is below. It is small, maybe 2 meters by
4 meters. There were a lot of us, girls and women. There was no food.
The women who had visitors shared their food. They let me go on the
second day. No one came to get me. It was after the `asha [evening call
to prayer."
-Hoda L., fourteen

"I was in the Giza police station for a week before they sent me to al
Azbekiya. At the Giza station I was with thieves who hit us and made us
sit in the bathroom. The cell was very big. There were adults and kids.
The smallest kid was nine, Suliman. The adults would hit us and tell us
"get back, get back" and make us sit in the bathroom. There were three
toilets, all full of water and filth. They made us sit there."
-Anwar R., fifteen

"Every little bit [the guards at al Azbekiya] hit us. They hit us with
belts. When they come to wake us, they wake us up with belts. If someone
says anything, they hit all of us."
-Marwan `I., thirteen

"The first time [I was sent back to my home governorate] there were
fifty or sixty people in the transport vehicle. Adults and kids. One
adult told me I was a "bastard." I had handcuffs on and the adults did
too. I couldn't breathe. I thought I was going to die. I was screaming,
but no one did anything. They didn't open the door until we arrived.
There were small kids crying, but no one did anything for them.
-Yahiya H., eleven

Arbitrary Arrest
"I was in the al Manial neighborhood. We were four kids. They were one
ordinary police officer and the police station commander and two
low-ranked police. We were crossing the University Bridge and they were
waiting at the other side of the bridge. They asked us for our identity
documents, but we were all young so we didn't have them. They kept
hitting us and telling us to get identity documents. Then the regular
officer took me aside, and I gave him 5LE (U.S.$1.10). Then he let us
go."
-Nasir Y., fifteen

Procedural Abuses
"The prosecutor took the police investigative report but didn't ask any
questions. They didn't say what I was charged with. They just wanted to
send me back to the countryside. I didn't see a judge."
-Anwar R., fifteen

"They ask you where you are from. Then the prosecutor says 'You stole
something.' I say, 'I didn't steal anything.' Then he says, 'O.K.
Begging.'"
- Khaled M., eleven

"At the police directorate the government orders four or five days
detention. At the Public Prosecution Office they say, 'Why did you leave
your family? It is wrong for a girl to leave her family.' Then they take
you to the police station; then they deport you [to your home
governorate]."
-Wafa' R., fifteen, victim of domestic violence

For more information on Human Rights Watch's work on Egypt, please see:
http://www.hrw.org/mideast/egypt.php

For more information on children's rights, please see:
http://www.hrw.org/children/index.htm