Mulala's Message - Can It Bring Hope for Egypt's Unwanted Street Girls?

Mulala Youssefsai’s one-girl crusade to ensure the education of girl’s garners worldwide enthusiasm and support. Her brave stance against the Taliban before, during, and after their near-fatal attack enhances her message. Girls no longer need subject themselves to narrow-minded traditionalists. Girls must take advantage of every opportunity for education. By doing so enhances them to become productive members of society on their own merit.

Yet in the midst of Mulala’s valiant efforts there are girls who will never receive the benefit of her crusade against ignorance. They remain prisoners of ignorance, prejudice, and inescapable humiliation. These are the girls wandering the streets of Egypt’s major cities, Cairo and Alexandria. They number anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000. Abandoned, violated, raped, imprisoned, uneducated, at the mercy of a disinterested government, these girls, when taken by the police, spend their days and nights locked in ‘fix-it’ places. In these places, the world can forget them; the government can ignore them, as they grow up in ignorance virtually buried alive.

While Mulala must be applauded and appreciated as a fearless advocate for girls’ rights everywhere, she can be forgiven for not realizing the depth of depravity to which the Egyptian government goes to silence the voices of those they consider less than human. The girls they suppress have no rights, no voice, no freedom, no identity. In contrast to Mulala who has a loving and supportive family and compassionate global public, these Egyptian street girls have no one to support or care for their welfare.

Il Binait Dol: Egypt’s Hidden Shame is a new book which for the first time gives these girls a voice. You can read their personal stories, discover their troubled existence, and read about possible solutions to bringing about real change for this army of street girls that deserves the same opportunities in life that Mulala claims are the right and privilege for each and every girl in the world. 

[The book is available on Kindle ebooks and will soon be available in paperback on Amazon books].

Special Envoy to Afghanistan & Pakistan Marc Grossman in Conversation

Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman was in conversation with Ken Furst at the World Affairs Council 87^th Annual dinner meeting, in Springfield, Massachusetts, 7 October 2013. Mr Furst, a former president of the World Affairs Council engaged the former Special Envoy in an important exchange of questions and answers regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan. They enlightened the audience on a bevy of topics concerning the past and current situation in both regions. During Mr Grossman’s thirty-years of experience in the US Diplomatic Corps, much of his time was spent in these countries.

This particular session was held at the annual business meeting for the World Affairs Council’s local chapter. The house was full, interest piqued, questions pertinent and answers always to the point. Curiosity about the Middle East is on the forefront. America’s involvement in this area heightened through involvement in the wars and conflicts raging over the decades including the recent events in Arab countries. I hesitate to call these recent events an Arab Spring; the situations have passed through the Spring and Summer, in many areas reaching Tsunami proportions. However, Mr Grossman kept to the topic at hand and ably commented about education for girls, the economy in these two particular countries, the elections in Afghanistan including Hamid Karsi’s negative remarks toward the US, in addition to being quite frank about the difficulty in dealing with cultures so entrenched in tribalism, while at the same time being conflicted about national identities. He pointed out the variety of problems arising in attempting to bring about the stability in which we in the West are fortunate to live.

He appeared hopeful that these countries would establish their own stability without the aid of American troops. While not speaking for the President’s plans for final troop withdrawal he personally prefers to see a small contingent remaining to give the Afghanis a last boost of assistance in their quest toward stability.

Mr Grossman entertained many questions from the audience all of which he answered with sincerity based on his personal knowledge. The evening proved to be informative and interesting. Since returning to the States from the Middle East, I am thankful that such an organization exists and that so many Americans exhibit enough concern to join in conversation on international affairs. The organizers of the event and the Council deserve thanks for their tremendous efforts in bringing it about as do those who gave their time and curiosity to attend. Finally it was a coup to garner Marc Grossman as speaker for this event. The World Affairs Council, a national organization, deserves praise for its endeavours in pursuit of bringing the globe home.

Egypt: Another perspective

     Today I spoke with a very good friend, an Egyptian who has known change in his country since 1952 and is currently on holiday in Austria. He is disgusted with the news coverage. “It’s lies, exaggeration, not what is really happening,” he told me. His son and brother communicate with him daily from Cairo. Yes, there is a curfew in the cities, there is violence, and unfortunately, Mohammed el Baradei, a member of the interim government and one of the architects of Egypt’s Arab Spring, resigned this week. 

     We blame this new revolutionary action, these demonstrators who demanded the step-down of Morsi. Did they have the right to do this? Why did they take this action?

What we don’t hear is that the Muslim Brotherhood, with its wealth, pays for the demonstrators to make trouble, pays for them to demand the return of Morsi, and also one very little-known item, they have paid for members of Hezbollah to infiltrate into the Sinai where they are holding the interim government and military under el Sisi to ransom. Their demand:  “Reinstate Mr. Morsi and we will stop fighting here.”

     The media ought to be ashamed that it does not deliver the other side of the story; it seems they more than relish the idea of broadcasting violence and bloodshed without giving voice to the facts. Yes, we need to be cautious, but informed caution is the requirement for any situation, especially informed regarding this sensitive part of the world, informed because misjudgment leads to further prejudice and ultimately, violence. We need to be given an insight into the real Egypt, the real situation as it stands, not repeated pictures of women in full burkas crying over lost family members, men pushing and shoving their way into a makeshift morgue. Who are these people? Are they Morsi supporters or are they those revolutionaries who want a secular Egypt, not an Islamic State?

     Egypt is in turmoil yesterday, today, and in all likelihood tomorrow until the results of the 30 June 2013 revolution are settled. Briefly, the problem stands that the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters refuse to accept the removal of their president, Mohammed Morsi. Morsi and his party began implementing steps to create Egypt as an Islamic State. Last November and December, for example, Morsi issued unilateral changes to the new constitution limiting the rights of women in addition to re-legalizing the infamous practice of FGM (female genital mutilation).

     The crux of the problem now is the continuation of violence.  What we hear on the news, however, does not reflect the reality. We are told that the security forces are indiscriminately killing civilians; law and order cease to be part of the scene in Cairo and other parts of the country. The world deserves all sides of the story, not merely the side which sells the most news.Both sides deserve a voice. Below are four links to articles which give some insight into the other.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201428800577064

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=669995666361672&set=vb.100000537347010&type=2&theater

http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/inside-egypts-terrorist-camps-torture-rape-mass-murder/

http://www.serageldin.com/NewsDetails.aspx?NewsID=BKd7g2ROyrNz2w3b8Suo6w%3d%3d

Gwenn Meredith

President

Middle East Connections Consultancy

CNN's Girl Rising – A Response

Without doubt, education, freedom to choose a lifestyle, and merely freedom to choose life can no longer be denied women and girls in the 21^st century. CNN’s Girl Rising, which premiered Sunday evening in the U.S., addressed many of these issues faced every day by women and girls throughout the world. In developing nations, girls still suffer the indignities of human trafficking, sold by families into sex slavery, and in some places infant girls put to death as one too many mouths to feed. Poor families need male children to carry on the family name and traditions with the underlying theme that girl children must no longer suffer shame, illiteracy, or abandonment. 
             Girl Rising stepped up to bring these problems to national and international attention. Voices of the rich and famous lent their star power to this effort, writers from native countries contributed personal stories to the CNN presentation directed by Richard Robbins. But, unfortunately, the strength of the programme seemed to lack the necessary “oomph” for the seriousness of the problem involved. The Cinderella, fairytale quality was never far from the surface of each of these tales. 
              For example, the Nepalese story demonstrated the tragedy of selling a child to a master because the family could not afford to keep her.  But throughout the account, the girl was able to write songs for survival, she dreamt of returning home to family, a family she knew cared for her but in desperation followed the family tradition of selling a member out to masters. Eventually, although suffering hardships, working pre-dawn to dark, and eating scraps, her third master allowed her to be educated in night school. This is wonderful, but does it really address the situation of the untold Nepalese girls unable to be sent to school or return to a family never to be sold again? 

              In Sierra Leone, the young heroine, not without difficulties, maneuvered her way to a talk radio program, giving advice to girls and women on a variety of concerns facing Sierra Leone women.  How is this done in the normal course of life in sub-Saharan Africa?  As a former resident in the Middle East, meeting many women and girls from countries like Sudan, Sierra Leone, and the Republic of Congo, I know that one must have “wasta” (influence) in order to even approach the idea of speaking on radio or television. This girl not only had a family, but there had to be a great deal of influence for her to become a radio host.  Not only education, but influence is necessary. 
              The authors of Half the Sky delved deeply into the problems confronting the women of sub-Saharan Africa. True, many of their stories had satisfactory endings, but not without years of overcoming prejudice and struggles which those of us in the developed world can barely imagine. The crises of FGM, hymen reconstruction in Middle Eastern countries, and the continued sex-trafficking, alongside the magnitude of education for women and girls must also receive continued global attention.  Girl Rising circumvented and sugar-coated many of the realities of girls with no hope of ever receiving an education and living in the darkness of ignorance and illiteracy.  No village chieftain will sit in front of television watching a western programme advising him that he must allow girls and women education.  Neither will members of the Taliban, those who shot and nearly killed young Mulala Youseffsai, subscribe to the importance of educating girls and women. Those who watched, those who spoke, those who gave time and money know education for girls is vital.  How do we reach those who don’t watch, won’t listen, and won’t accept the importance of girls and women in society as other than baby-making machines? 

              The Egyptian story written by Mona El Tahawy emphasizes this point.  I have personally worked with the street girls, the homeless, helpless, and certainly illiterate girls in Egypt.  If the basic premise behind Girl Rising is to expose the dearth of education in developing countries, then the Egyptian tale erased many of these benefits. Yasmin, the young Egyptian girl, revealed that she was literate, had a family, and came from a neighborhood that boasted at least one or possibly more televisions. Why? She was familiar with superheroes; the bookshops which sit on virtually every Cairo street corner sell Marvel comics in Arabic showing the superhero. Egyptian television is filled with cartoons, in Arabic, about superheroes.  No young Egyptian girl, certainly not one wearing an hijab, would speak to a policeman without fear, about being a superhero, even with her mother beside her. 
              Yasmin’s family life is questionable.  Her mother brought her in to a police station to report a rape. Would this happen in reality? Admitting to the police that her husband was in jail, trusting the police with an accusation of rape against a fairly prosperous man, and then Yasmin telling the police she was not afraid of anything, she was a superhero, just would not happen in Cairo…even if Yasmin’s family was wealthy.  Rape is not a crime which is brought to police attention. The recent demonstrations and ill treatment by the police and military of female protesters show the reality of announcing rape to the Egyptian world. It’s such a disquieting circumstance that the one young woman raped by police during the demonstration, though bravely bringing this to national attention by suing the police in court, knew she might be outcast by her own people for doing this. That she was not outcast was due in part because of the international attention she received, the prominence of her family, and the impending political elections.

              Yasmin’s education and ability to be educated was not brought in to question. State schools are available to all children who have families, family names, even if the father is in prison. That Yasmin’s mother brought her to the police station is unrealistic; also, the information that the writer of the Egyptian story now claims to have lost track of both mother and daughter is not quite believable. Cairo, though a city of 20 million, is made up of neighborhoods, and everyone always knows someone. It’s not a city in which it’s easy to hide.
              Finally, Yasmin’s violent reaction against being called a street girl brings the hideous matter of a devastating problem facing Cairenes. Street children, in particular street girls, abandoned, raped, imprisoned, beaten, raped, and illiterate live desperate existences with no hope or end in sight. These girls and the thousands like them have deeply moving stories to tell.
              These girls, or in Arabic, Il Binait Dol, are the ones we need to hear about. They, too, would like to be considered as real humans, members of a planet not too proud to recognize and correct the shame being perpetrated on them every day. They, too, deserve a place among Girl Rising.

              The photos above  are just a few of the young girls in one of Cairo’s Islahayas.

Gwenn Meredith, Ph.D.

Founder & President

Middle East Connections Consultancy

gwenn.mec@gmail.com

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?

God-ordained rape

The 2012 Presidential election is over and voters have decided where to put men like Mr. Mourdock and his flagrant anti-women comments regarding rape. As a woman and a rape survivor, the need to expostulate and add my voice to all those women who answered his challenge with their votes against this rhetoric, it’s important to say that the fight is not over. Not merely in America, but globally, all women, regardless of their personal religious beliefs or non-beliefs, feel a distinct outrage at views like Mr. Mourdock’s, not only at his comments but that so many men have now taken the ball and run with it to justify Mr. Mourdock’s statements. They attempt this by saying the refs were confused, took the play out of context, and then make the monumental effort to recall the points.
               I make no apologies for using the football analogy, because this is what men have been doing with women’s bodies from time immemorial, using us as the football in their game of running to the goal line. We’ve been tossed back and forth between the teams of men whenever they need to score a goal. Sadly, we are that inflatable and deflatable football; we go up and down depending on the current coach. Oh yes, they’ll use us whenever necessary, like the valiant women during WWII who picked up the ball and ran interference to get the job done. But once the war was over, men decided we must have the air let out, flop us back again into domesticity and submission because truly, women just don’t have the stuff to participate in the “real world.” Nothing changes, and now we’re told that even if raped, it’s ordained and sanctioned by god and whatever the outcome, men tell us what to do with our bodies and how we should feel about the entire business.
                This issue cannot be confined to one country, one political campaign, or one religious dogma. Globally, women suffer rape every day, whether victims of war or domestic violence. Rape is a global male atrocity and an insufferable part of male domination. Mr. Mourdock and his supporters try to gloss over their statements, although Mr Mourdock does not believe he needs to apologize as he spoke from very deeply felt beliefs, but they’re the players in this issue who dominate because they are men and like father, know best. I have watched women attempt to weigh in on this debate with a panel of men, it doesn’t work; men raise their voices as if shouting out the all-important play in the last seconds will bring in the game-winning field goal. They don’t want to hear our issues, we’re merely women; we don’t know how to read maps, change car oil, or think responsibly, nor are we capable of making decisions about our own bodies. We’ve been told this for so long that without doubt it must be true, so then, naturally if a man tells us rape is ordained by god, then this, too, cannot be doubted – our coaches have spoken. And unfortunately, it’s not only men who have these unbelievably Machiavellian attitudes. One woman researcher from Texas seems to believe she’s proven that women vote with their hormones and ovulation periods. Ovulate, you’re liberal, in a stable relationship, you’re conservative, hormonal, you won’t think clearly on any issue, therefore can’t be trusted.
                Ancient Greeks, those philosophers of note, felt no compunction in placing and keeping women under their power. Women, according to a star of Greek philosophy, Aristotle, possess neither the mental, physical, nor the emotional acuity for decision – making; therefore, their roles must be relegated and kept to the home. Now, over two thousand years later, in spite of the incomparable achievements by women, men still do not want to put women in as quarterbacks, coaches, or any other role which tips the balance and brings home a win. And in the few instances where a woman is given power, the scrutiny under which she comes surpasses that for men. This, too, is a form of rape, because rape takes many forms, physical, emotional, and psychological. In the Middle East, women suffer from this male attitude that women must remain as chattels. In Saudi Arabia, they are not allowed to drive or even leave the home without covering and must be accompanied by a man, even if he’s a ten-year old brother. Consider, for example, the recent incident in Pakistan where parents threw hot acid on their young teenage daughter who happened to look in a man’s direction; she died, and her family believes they are justified because they had already been dishonoured by their eldest daughter. Then, there is the very tragic occurrence in Pakistan by the Taliban as one man with murder in mind and heart sought out a young girl because she spoke out for the rights of women to be educated.
                Where will it end?  We cover our hair because no man can see your hair except your husband; we wear gloves, because our skin cannot touch that of a man, otherwise he will become totally inflamed with lust and of course it’s the woman’s fault. We bow our heads in submission, we do not pray in the same place with men, we are too much of a distraction. A man in prayer has a difficult enough time concentrating on god without the enticing presence of a woman. She is only there as a temptation, to lead him astray. We submit to the tyranny of male opinion, vote the way our husbands or fathers tell us because we are incapable of making a well-formed opinion. These are extreme but powerful examples of women being raped of their lives and rights to opinions, to be heard in the roaring male crowd overcome by the tensions of the game. Unfortunately, these extremes creep insidiously closer to reality every day, as witnessed by Mr. Mourdock’s proclamation, without forgetting the other very outspoken comment by Mr. Akin, that if it’s a legitimate rape, then pregnancy won’t occur. Combine this with Mr. Mourdock’s belief that rapes are god-ordained, then women have no cause to complain, everything is okay with god and with the world.
                Let’s wonder, though, how Mr. Mourdock and those of his fellow thinkers might react if and when the terrible tragedy of rape is wrought upon any of their daughters or wives. If they become pregnant from this horrible event, will they still believe it’s a god-given blessing and ordained, allowed by this god they worship?  I wonder what happened to the god of the New Testament in whom they declare absolute faith, the one Jesus preached about, this god of love?  Did this god lose the game and drown in the deluge of vitriol wracking the presidential campaign? Has this god disappeared from the global horrors when strong men decide it’s time to exercise their right to dominate the “game” and rape the cheerleaders?  And if they are raped, they better learn to appreciate the value of that rape, it is ordained by god, and they must love the consequences, not to fret or worry, because once the game is over, men return to the locker room, gloat over their wins, and go home to be the men they are, intelligent, capable, strong, and in control. Never mind the cheerleader-she got what she asked for!