OPEN// Egypt First Lady hails hero officer in Ramses fire, salutes all brave police personnel
In a post on her official social media page, Egypt's First Lady expressed her gratitude and that of all Egyptians of the dedication and courage of police officers who risk their lives to safeguard the nation.
"During my phone contact, I expressed deep gratitude for her son's bravery and that of his fellow officers,' the First Lady wrote. 'I salute them all and pray that God protects Egypt through the devotion of its loyal men.' (MENA)
S R E
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al-Ahram Weekly
31-07-2025
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Egypt follows up on safety of citizens in sinking boat off Libyan coast - Foreign Affairs
Egypt is closely following up with the Libyan authorities regarding the safety of the Egyptian nationals who were aboard a boat that sank off the coast of Tobruk, a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday. The ministry said the Egyptian Consulate General in Benghazi dispatched a delegation to the city of Tobruk immediately upon receiving information regarding the incident. The consulate promptly started coordinating with the relevant Libyan authorities to check the safety of the Egyptians who were aboard the boat. Upon identifying some bodies, necessary procedures were taken to transfer them to the land border crossing after being identified by their relatives in Egypt. The consulate is also coordinating with the Libyan side to complete the procedures for transferring other bodies once identified. Moreover, it is monitoring the conditions of several survivors in preparation for their repatriation once the ongoing investigations are concluded. The ministry affirmed that it will continue to follow up with the consulate regarding all procedures related to the transfer of the deceased citizens' bodies and expedite the return of survivors to Egypt. It urged all citizens to refrain from resorting to irregular migration routes due to the grave dangers they entail, as well as the risk of exploitation by human trafficking networks. "Egypt is committed to providing safe alternatives and lawful opportunities for youth, whether through training or qualification programmes or by expanding avenues for regular migration via official channels with partner countries," the ministry affirmed. On Thursday, 18 migrants lost their lives in a shipwreck off the coast of Tobruk, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in a statement. Egypt continues its efforts to combat irregular migration through border security, regional cooperation, and development initiatives, addressing root causes and enhancing legal pathways in coordination with European and African partners. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Al-Ahram Weekly
26-07-2025
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Libya detains 1,500 undocumented migrant workers, mostly Egyptians, in raid near Tripoli - Region
Libyan authorities detained on Saturday some 1,500 undocumented migrant workers in a raid on a neighbourhood housing them east of the capital Tripoli, an AFP reporter saw. "Saturday's inspections uncovered housing units where undocumented foreign workers were living," Libyan labour minister Ali al-Abed, who was present during the raid, told reporters. "These workers, of various nationalities, had no residency permits, no official passports, and not even health records." Libya has been gripped by conflict since the 2011 overthrow and killing of longtime ruler Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising. The country remains split between Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah's government based in Tripoli and a rival administration based in the east. With Italy some 300 kilometres (186 miles) away, Libya has become a key launchpad for tens of thousands of migrants who risk their lives at sea trying to reach Europe. The area targeted in the sweep east of Tripoli housed makeshift encampments surrounded by high walls and a large gate. Hundreds of migrants -- mostly Egyptians and sub-Saharan Africans -- were said to have lived there. Inside the compound, an AFP journalist saw a small grocery store, a butcher shop and vegetable vendors. The labour minister said the site had "unregulated housing that fails to meet basic requirements for decent accommodation, health and workplace safety". The detained migrant workers will be "transferred to centres run by the Anti-Illegal Immigration Authority, and legal proceedings will be initiated against them according to national regulations", Abed said. It remained unclear whether the migrants would be immediately deported. Earlier this month, a European Union commissioner and ministers from Greece, Italy and Malta were in Libya to discuss irregular migration from the North African country. Migrants intercepted by Libyan authorities, including in international waters before reaching the Italian coast, are forcibly returned to Libya and held in detention under harsh conditions frequently condemned by the United Nations. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Al-Ahram Weekly
10-07-2025
- Al-Ahram Weekly
What Menoufia crash reveals about Egypt shadow economy - Features
The death of 18 girls, who were on their way to work in a grape field in Menoufia, was not a freak accident but an outcome of a hidden economy that powers Egypt's exports but leaves millions unprotected. Before first light, 23 girls, most barely more than children, quietly left their red-brick homes in Kafr El Sanabisah, walking 30 minutes to a dilapidated microbus. Packed dangerously, they were headed for a grape field they could never reach. By midmorning, 18 of them were dead. The Menoufia crash was not an anomaly but a grim consequence of systemic failures: unregulated hiring, unsafe transport, and deaths dismissed as a misfortune rather than a breakdown of oversight. These girls from impoverished families were working off the books, with their daily wages fueling Egypt's agricultural exports and their lives unprotected by laws or officials. Their tragedy reflects a broader landscape of economic policies marginalizing rural labour, infrastructure favouring capital over human life, and child labour laws that fail to shield the most vulnerable. Invisible workforce Most Egyptians work under the same system that sent the Menoufia girls to work that morning — the least regulated, recorded, and accountable system. Amal Abdel-Hamid, head of the Women's Programme at the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS), has spent years documenting the agricultural labour system. She said this system includes middlemen who take half the wages and answer to no one; vehicles — often dilapidated pickups or open-top trucks — that transport workers to farms without oversight; 12-hour shifts under the brutal sun, with return trips made after dark. 'There are no written agreements, no insurance, and no social protection,' she told Ahram Online. 'They don't know the name of the company or landowner,' Abdel-Hamid added. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 67 percent of Egypt's workforce is informal. In agriculture, it is over 97 percent. Women and girls are the least visible: 62.5 percent of employed women work informally, and 91 percent earn below the minimum wage. Most are never formally classified as workers. Two-thirds of informal female workers live in rural areas. Only 10.2 percent of informal workers outside formal establishments are covered by social insurance, according to the World Economic Forum. 'Agriculture is treated as informal by default,' said Abdel-Hamid. 'It's seasonal, scattered, and mostly private, and the government turns a blind eye. Why? Because it absorbs the poor. Because it offers cheap labour. Because it doesn't cost the government anything.' Labour law prohibits work for those under the age of 15, but enforcement is rare. 'The problem is not the law. It's the implementation. Inspectors only visit registered factories — if that. No one goes to the fields,' Abdel-Hamid affirmed. 'These accidents happen every year,' she said. 'Transport crashes; field injuries; sexual harassment; exploitation; even rape... It reflects structural neglect and ongoing failure to protect the labour force's most precarious.' Global crop, local cost Egypt is the world's sixth-largest exporter of fresh grapes. In 2023, the country exported $292 million worth, mostly to Northern Europe. By May 2024, grapes had overtaken citrus as Egypt's top fresh export. The Ministry of Agriculture hails the rise as a success. Carriers like ZIM describe Egypt as a 'leading hub' of year-round fruit supply. 'European markets have rules,' Nadine Abdalla, assistant professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo (AUC), said. 'So, how are grapes harvested by underage girls and off-the-books workers still reaching Northern Europe?' The European Union's (EU) Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) — which will require companies to trace labour conditions — will not take effect until 2027. Until then, there is no binding obligation to scrutinize subcontracted or informal recruitment practices. Grapes picked by underage girls in Egypt, sometimes for as little as EGP 100 a day, can still reach European markets without scrutiny. ZIM's supply chain report describes grape exports in meticulous technical terms. Nowhere does it mention the workers behind the yield. Even as the Ministry of Environment targets 50 million feddans for organic conversion by 2030, the workers driving that shift remain unregistered, uninsured, and invisible. 'There is no real infrastructure for this sector,' Abdalla said. 'The government can benefit from a strong agricultural economy, but does it deliver the support needed? Where is the system that ensures it's sustainable, fair, or even safe?' Not the first, not the last In 1997, a truck carrying over 120 children, who were on their way to harvest cotton, overturned and fell into a canal. Twenty of them drowned, and fifty were injured. 'Children represent 60 percent of the labour force in the countryside,' labour activist Karam Saber Ibrahim told the LA Times at the time. Thirty years later, it is still children who harvest Egypt's fields — without contracts, protection, or oversight. The ILO estimates 63.5 percent of all child labour in Egypt takes place in agriculture. However, labour force surveys record just 0.2 percent of working females and 0.5 percent of males as minors. Most are unregistered, uncounted, and underpaid. 'Child labour is in crisis,' said Abdalla. 'Not just because of culture or norms, but because of poverty, marginalization, and policy failure. This is the government's job.' 'The law bans child labour and sets strict conditions: limited hours, rest time, and schooling. But they're never applied to agricultural work — especially in informal and seasonal jobs,' Lobna Darwish, director of the Women's Programme at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), said. 'These children are hired daily, paid less, and seen as a good deal. On paper, they're protected, but in practice, no one enforces these rules. We all know it. We just pretend not to see it,' she continued. Between mid-2024 and mid-2025, at least five major crashes involving informal workers were reported across Egypt. A ferry capsized in Abu Ghalib, killing 10, including nine children. A van overturned near Matariyya, leaving 13 dead. In early 2025, a pickup flipped in Beheira, killing four. The Regional Ring Road — intended to be a transportation crown jewel — cost over EGP 10 billion and took a decade to complete. By 2020, it had already been partially closed for repairs. By mid-2025, only half of the upgrades had been completed. A single carriageway was handling two-way traffic when the microbus carrying the Kafr El Sanabisah girls collided with a truck. 'This isn't about a reckless driver or a single vehicle,' said Abdalla. 'This is a structural failure. Roads are poorly planned and dangerous. Farm owners don't provide safe transport. According to CAPMAS, 61,000 traffic accidents were reported in 2024, with 5,260 deaths in the first half of the year alone. We need to ask: how do we make Egypt's road network safe for everyone?' Deputy Prime Minister for Industrial Development and Minister of Industry and Transport Kamel El-Wazir estimated the cost of full rehabilitation at EGP 50 billion, insisting that the government can fund it through toll revenues. The system that made them expendable 'Families don't send children to work because they want to,' stated Abdalla. 'They do it because they've been excluded from development. Infrastructure, services, and transportation are the government's job.' In his 2023 paper, "Agricultural and Food Policies in Egypt between 2014 and 2021: What Changed and What Didn't," rural sociologist Sakr El-Nour traces this neglect back to the Nasser era. Industrial workers were absorbed into the state through trade unions. Agricultural labour was left out — seen as too fragmented to organize, too traditional to modernize, and too poor to prioritize. This hierarchy still shapes state policy. Between 2014 and 2021, investment flowed into mega-reclamation projects aimed at exports, bypassing the seasonal workers who sustain them. 'The state has further disengaged from guaranteeing food security, rural employment, or price stability, shifting responsibility to the private sector while deepening inequality,' El-Nour writes. At the base of this structure is a calculus of expendability. The 2024 Labour Law introduced progressive reforms on paper — stronger language on union rights, child protection, and worker representation. However, most of the agricultural sector was left out: informal workers, paid by the day, remained unprotected. 'Seasonal and daily agricultural work has always existed in Egypt,' said Darwish. 'The idea that we 'can't' regulate it is false — we just haven't tried. There's no excuse for the lack of safety standards or accountability from landowners, especially corporate ones.' 'At best, there might be monetary compensation after a tragedy, but there is no mechanism to protect these girls from risk or exploitation,' Abdel-Hamid clarified. Agricultural workers are allowed to unionize, but in practice, options are limited. 'Although there's a general union and one for small farmers in Minya, their work is limited to basic aid distribution, not rights advocacy," Abdel-Hamid noted. "There are no real spaces for independent unions to operate freely. So when we talk about 'rights,' we're talking in a vacuum — without actual representation for the people affected,' she explained. 'They have no choice. Inflation is out of control. Public services are scarce. Parents are covering school fees, transportation, and everything else. If your only other option is hunger, that's not a choice. That's coercion,' Darwish said. She also explained that since 2016, women's access to the labour market has shrunk — not because they do not want to work, but because the economy offers them little. 'Education doesn't change that,' she argued. 'We've built an economy that ignores women completely.' The WEF reports that gender parity in school enrollment and primary attendance remains high, but completion rates tell a different story. In rural areas, girls often drop out by 13 or 14. 'Education is meant to be the ladder for social mobility, but the system isn't functioning,' Abdalla explained. 'Girls drop out because schools are far, roads are unsafe, violence is common, and the quality of teaching is low. Enrollment may be high, but so are dropout rates.' 'Unless public policy changes — unless the political system values their lives — this will keep happening," Darwish insisted. "This isn't about holding someone responsible. It's about changing the system that made these girls expendable," she emphasized. Alternatives within reach In Beni Suef and Minya, small-scale models have quietly emerged, offering a glimpse of what safer, more equitable rural labour could look like. Since 2023, the EU-funded Opportunities for Women in Agribusiness Project (OWAP), run by Alinnea International, has supported the formation of women-led cooperatives in rural Egypt. These are not charities but registered entities created by women in their villages. 'When I was introduced to the cooperative, I promoted the idea among other women in my village,' said Rasha Gonidy, a founding member of Min Khirha. 'This was the first time I ever made my own decisions.' The three cooperatives — Min Khirha in El-Maymoun, Nigmet El-Zaytoun in El-Zaytoun (Beni Suef), and Thamara in Kom El-Mahras (Minya) — process and pack agricultural goods locally. Together, they employ over 150 women who decide what to produce, when to work, and how to share profits. Some work on dry grapes and vine leaves; others peel onions for export. In July 2024, Min Khirha and Nigmet El-Zaytoun signed agreements with global supplier Olam Food Ingredients to process white onions. The women received training in hygiene and food safety and now work in certified spaces with contracts and legal protections — many of them for the first time. They financed the effort themselves, saving part of their OWAP stipends, pooling funds, and renting buildings to convert into production units. The work keeps them off dangerous roads and within reach of social protection programmes like Takaful and Karama. What the people demand "We want something that girls and women can work in,' said the aunt of Toka, one of the Menoufia victims. 'They can do anything — they can learn and excel. We just want our village to progress. Give us a year-round school. Give us job opportunities for girls. We didn't ask for money.' Another aunt said it directly: 'We don't want anything. We don't need clothes or money. The only thing we want are projects for the village, not for us, for the people. If we were used to begging, we wouldn't have let our daughter go out to work. I don't want to earn charity through my pain." Abdel-Hamid said the demands are precise and long overdue. 'If we want to protect these girls, not just mourn them, we need to be honest about where the system is broken, and where it has to start being fixed,' she stressed. This, she said, begins with recognition. 'Agricultural labour has to be seen for what it is: a major sector employing millions, not a footnote. That means it needs a clear legal definition, and it must be brought under proper regulation, with inspections that actually reach the fields,' she stated. 'We also have to stop pretending the laws on child labour are enough. They're not. They're not enforced. Children under the legal working age are being hired every day. And those between 14 and 18, who are technically allowed to work in training roles, have no protection at all. We need to change that,' she expressed. 'These girls are transported in open trucks, in vehicles that wouldn't pass any basic safety check. There has to be a law that governs how workers are transported. Right now, there isn't one,' she added. However, she said laws are not enough from afar. 'There needs to be local protection — actual units on the ground, near the villages, working with people who know what's happening. Civil society can help, but it needs access and support.' 'If these women and girls are ever going to have rights, they need representation. Unions that can speak for them, not just deliver aid. That means independent organizing — and space for it to exist,' she noted. 'The system has to reflect the nature of their work — that it's seasonal, informal, mobile. Right now, the state offers little.' 'And finally we need media that listens to them before they die. Not just after. These girls have stories — and lives — worth hearing,' she affirmed. That call has already begun in Kafr El Sanabisah. The question is whether anyone will answer. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
