Middle East Connections Consultancy

Who is Caring About Egypt’s Displaced Children? 

     Today’s news features stories about the horrid situation faced by Syria’s refugees as a result of the conflict in that country. The numbers rise to more than 450,000 children, with totals skyrocketing to over 2 million running to safety in camps set up in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Iran. Their situation is appalling; Save the Children administrators in these countries bring to light the predicament of this new “lost generation” of children – what will be their fate, will the civil war in Syria ever end? The latest frightening information is that Syria’s youth are now being recruited by both rebel and government forces as the newest soldiers. Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall visited the Jordanian King Abdulla camp today, and they commented on the terrible conditions in which these refugee children are forced to live. All of these groups and individuals are most certainly correct; no person, child or adult, should be subjected to conditions which strip them of human dignity and basic human rights including the merest need, clean drinking water. 
     Yet a greater question arises. With all the focus on the drastic situation facing Syria’s refugees, has anyone considered the in-house Egyptian refugee children? They can be called in-house because Egypt, in Cairo itself, not considering Alexandria, has as many as 250,000 homeless, nameless, beggar children roaming its streets...half the total number of Syrian children refugees in one Egyptian city alone. These children--over half of whom are girls, are dumped, raped, abused, underfed, given no identity, with no papers or family, thereby nonpersons--receive no national, international, or even local attention, aid, or assistance. 
     Egyptians themselves are so accustomed to the dirty street children selling bags of lemons or boxes of tissues that they’ve become inured to the problem. No one cares about the lost generations of Egyptians denied basic human needs, dignity, human rights, including a place to sleep that isn’t a concrete gutter or alleyway. The Egyptian government sees to it that statistics regarding their nameless and numberless children do not leak out to the international community; otherwise, the funds given to Egypt might have to find specific designation to aid these unwanted and neglected children. The $450,000,000 promised by the new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry might then not be given so freely to a government that among other objectives, is working to re-legalize FGM [female genital mutilation], and one that believes girls and women are irrelevant to the promotion of any kind of equitable living conditions, employment, or education. 
     Yes, the situation for Syria’s displaced and homeless population is tragic; the world community at large is aware, and international pressure may eventually bring positive change, but Egypt’s street girls have received no attention or help for more than two generations and still counting. Where is the international outcry for their unimaginably heart-rending plight?