Wayzata World Factbook 1996/The World Factbook - 1996 Edition - Wayzata Technology (3079) (1996).iso/pc/text/humanrts/egypt.txv

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TITLE: EGYPT HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE: FEBRUARY 1995



Section 4  Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
           Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
           of Human Rights

The Government refuses to license local human rights
organizations as private entities under Law 32 of 1964 (see
Section 2.b.) on the grounds that they are political
organizations.  Appeals from the Egyptian Organization for
Human Rights (EOHR) and the associated Arab Organization for
Human Rights (AOHR) on the ruling on their legal status are
still before the courts.  AOHR has successfully registered as a
foreign organization with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Despite its nonrecognition, the EOHR operates openly, its field
workers visit prisons and government offices, and the
Government does not interfere with its funding from foreign
human rights organizations.  Other activists have successfully
registered their human rights organizations as corporations
under the commercial law, thus skirting the obstacles posed by
Law 32.

In May an EOHR staff member, who was also a defense lawyer for
persons arrested in an unauthorized demonstration at the Bar
Association headquarters (see Section 1.c.), was arrested
ostensibly on grounds of inciting public disorder and
questioned extensively about his activities at the EOHR.

In June representatives of the New York-based Human Rights
Watch complained of overt surveillance by state security
officers during one of their field trips to upper Egypt.  In
September the EOHR reported that state security officers
ordered EOHR's publisher not to distribute copies of EOHR's
1993 annual report.

Section 5  Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
           Disability, Language, or Social Status

     Women

The law provides for equality of the sexes, but aspects of the
law and many traditional practices discriminate against women.
By law women need their husbands' or fathers' permission to
obtain a passport or travel abroad (Section 2.d.).  Only males
can confer citizenship.  In rare cases, this means that
children born to Egyptian mothers and stateless fathers are
themselves stateless.

Laws affecting marriage and personal status generally
correspond to an individual's religion, which for most
Egyptians is Islam.  A 1979 liberalization of the Family Status
Law strengthened a Muslim woman's rights to divorce and to
child custody.  In 1985, however, the changes were found
unconstitutional on grounds that they conflicted with Islamic
law and were repealed.

Under Islamic law, non-Muslim males must convert to Islam to
marry Muslim women, but non-Muslim women need not convert to
marry Muslim men.  Muslim female heirs receive half the amount
of a male heir's inheritance, while Christian widows of Muslims
have no inheritance rights.  A sole female heir receives half
her parents' estate; the balance goes to designated male
relatives.  A sole male heir inherits all his parents'
property.  Male Muslim heirs have the duty to provide for all
family members who need assistance.

Egyptian women have employment opportunities in government,
medicine, law, academia, the arts, and, to a lesser degree, in
business.  About 100 officers in the Egyptian diplomatic
service are women, including 3 ambassadors.  There are no women
judges.  Although there is no legal basis to prohibit women
judges, a woman under consideration for promotion to magistrate
was denied the promotion on the basis of gender in 1993 and is
suing the Government.

Social pressure against women pursuing a career is strong, and
some Egyptian feminists say that a resurgent Islamic
fundamentalist trend limits further gains.  Women's rights
advocates also point to other discriminatory attitudes and
practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and the male
relative's role in enforcing women's compliance with
religiously prescribed codes of sexual conduct.

Family violence against women occurs and is reflected in press
accounts of specific incidents.  Official or nonofficial
quantitative data do not exist.  In general, the intervention
of neighbors and extended family members tends to limit the
prevalence and scope of such violence.  Abuse within the family
is rarely discussed publicly, owing to the value attached to
privacy in this traditional society.  Neither the government,
nongovernmental organizations, or human rights organizations
has commented publicly upon family violence.

There are at least two active women's rights groups, one
affiliated with the EOHR.  The other is the Communications
Group for the Enhancement of the Status of Women, which has
published a booklet on the legal rights of Egyptian women.

     Children

The Government remains committed to the protection of
children's welfare within the limits of its budgetary
resources.  Many of the resources for children's welfare are
provided by international donors, especially in the field of
child immunization.  Child labor is widespread, despite the
Government's commitment to eradicate it.

International health experts have condemned female genital
mutilation (FGM) as damaging to physical and mental health.
Statistics on the prevalence of FGM vary, but government and
private sources agree it is common among 70 to 80 per cent of
rural and poor urban women.  The act is generally performed on
girls between the ages of 7 and 10, probably with equal
prevalence among Muslims and Coptic Christians.

A 1959 decree and subsequent amendments, which described the
practice as "psychologically harmful," limited the practice to
excision.  However, the more drastic infibulation is practiced
in some parts of southern Egypt.  The decree prohibited doctors
from performing the excision in government health facilities.
Current law stipulates penalties for nonmedical practitioners;
a barber was sentenced in November to a year at hard labor for
circumcising a child.  However, the law does not stipulate
punishment for parents who violate the law.  Following public
outcry in 1994 over foreign television airing of the
circumcision of a 9-year old girl, the Minister of Health, in
the company of religious leaders, announced the Government
would hold its first conference on FGM.  The Government also
broadcast television programs condemning the practice.  The
Sheikh of Al-Azhar, head of the world's oldest institution of
Islamic thought, has issued a decree declaring FGM a
religiously mandated duty.  His ruling could hamper any public
educational efforts by the Government.

     Religious Minorities

The approximately 5 million Coptic Christians are the objects
of occasional violent assaults by Islamic extremists and of
discrimination by the Government.  In 1994 Islamic extremists
are believed to have been responsible for killing at least
eight Coptic residents of Assiyut governorate, including the
shooting of six pilgrims at a monastery.  The area of Dairut,
Assiyut governorate, the scene of a massacre of 13 Coptic
residents in 1992, is reportedly still tense.  Local Coptic
residents fear for their personal safety when traveling outside
their homes.

Extremists have obstructed church repairs and construction and
harassed Copt-owned businesses.  Christians have complained
that the Government is lax in protecting Coptic lives and
property.  Security forces arrest extremists who perpetrate
violence against Copts, but the Coptic community does not
believe the Government is vigorous in its efforts to prevent
the attacks and does little to correct nonviolent forms of
discrimination, including its own.

Government discriminatory practices include:  suspected
statistical underrepresentation of the size of the Christian
population; delays in issuing church building and repair
permits and obstruction of permits obtained; the detention and
mistreatment of some Muslim converts to Christianity; laws that
prevent Muslims from changing their identity papers to reflect
their conversion to Christianity (upheld in a 1980 court
decision); anti-Christian discrimination in education,
illustrated by the requirement that public school students,
including Christians, memorize Koranic verses as part of their
Arabic studies; a public school ban on the hiring of Christian
Arabic teachers as the curriculum involves the study of the
Koran; the production of Islamic television programs, some with
anti-Christian themes; job discrimination in the public sector,
the police, the armed forces, and government agencies; reported
discrimination against Christians in admission to state medical
schools; and underrepresentation in government.  There are no
Coptic governors and no Copts in the upper ranks of the
military, police, and diplomatic service.

     People with Disabilities

There are approximately 5.7 million disabled persons in Egypt,
of whom 1.5 million are severely disabled.  The Government
makes serious efforts to address their rights.  It works
closely with United Nations agencies and other international
aid donors to design job-training programs for the disabled.
The Government also seeks to increase the public's awareness of
the capabilities of the disabled in television programming, the
print media, and in educational material in public schools.  By
law, all businesses must designate 5 percent of their jobs for
the disabled, who are exempted from normal literacy
requirements.  Although there is no legislation mandating
access to public accommodations and transportation, the
disabled may ride government-owned mass transit buses without
charge, are given priority in obtaining telephones, and receive
reductions on customs duty for private vehicles.

Section 6  Worker Rights

     a.  The Right of Association

Egyptian workers may, but are not required to, join trade
unions.  A union local, or worker's committee, may be formed if
50 employees express a desire to organize.  Most union members,
about 25 per cent of the labor force, are employed by
state-owned enterprises.  The law stipulates that "high
administrative" officials in government and the public sector
may not join unions.

There are 23 industrial unions, all required to belong to the
Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), the sole legally
recognized labor federation.  The International Labor
Organization's Committee of Experts (COE) has repeatedly
emphasized that a law requiring all trade unions to belong to a
single federation infringes on the freedom of association.  The
Government has shown no sign that it intends to accept the
establishment of more than one federation.  The ETUF leadership
asserts that it actively promotes worker interests and that
there is no need for another federation.  ETUF officials have
close relations with the NDP, and some are members of the
People's Assembly and the Shura Council.  They speak vigorously
on behalf of worker concerns, but public confrontations between
ETUF and the Government are rare.  Disputes are more often
resolved by consensus behind closed doors.

Some unions within ETUF are affiliated with international trade
union organizations.  Others are in the process of doing so.

The Government is in the process of drafting a new labor law
which has not yet been submitted to the People's Assembly.  The
law is expected to be debated in the spring of 1995.  The
proposed law provides statutory authorization for the rights to
strike and to collective bargaining.  Under current labor laws
such rights are not adequately guaranteed.  Even though the
right to strike is not guaranteed, strikes occur.  The
Government considers strikes a form of public disturbance and
hence illegal.

In October the police used force to break up a public
demonstration in support of a strike by several thousand
textile workers at the northern town of Kafr al-Duwar.  In
putting down the demonstration, the police killed at least 5
persons, including a 12-year-old child, arrested more than 100
demonstrators.  Sixty demonstrators were injured.

     b.  The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

The draft labor law provides statutory authorization for
collective bargaining.  Under the current law, unions may
negotiate work contracts with public sector enterprises if the
latter agrees to such negotiations, but unions otherwise lack
collective bargaining power in the state sector.  Under current
circumstances, collective bargaining does not exist in any
meaningful sense because the Government sets wages, benefits,
and job classifications by law.  Larger firms in the private
sector generally adhere to such government-mandated standards.

Labor law and practice are the same in the export processing
zones as in the rest of the country.

     c.  Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

Forced or compulsory labor is illegal and not practiced.

     d.  Minimum Age for Employment of Children

The minimum age for employment is 12.  Education is compulsory
until age 15.  An employee must be at least 15 to join a labor
union.  The Labor Law of 1981 states that children aged 12 to
15 may work 6 hours a day but not after 7 p.m. and not in
dangerous or heavy activities.  Child workers must obtain
medical certificates and work permits before they are employed.

A 1988 survey found that 1.4 million children between the ages
of 6 and 14 are employed--about 7 percent of the total work
force.  A 1989 study estimated that two-thirds of child labor,
perhaps 720,000 children, work on farms.  However, children
also work as apprentices in repair and craft shops, in heavier
industries such as brickmaking and textiles, and as workers in
leather factories and carpet-making, which largely supplies the
export market.  While local trade unions report that the
Ministry of Labor adequately enforces the labor laws in
state-owned enterprises, enforcement in the private sector,
especially in family-owned enterprises, is lax.

     e.  Acceptable Conditions of Work

For government and public-sector employees, the minimum wage is
approximately $20 a month for a 6-day, 48-hour workweek.  Base
pay is supplemented by a complex system of fringe benefits and
bonuses that may double or triple a worker's take-home pay.  It
is doubtful that the average family could survive on a worker's
base pay at the minimum wage rate.  The minimum wage is also
legally binding on the private sector, and larger private
companies generally observe the requirement and pay bonuses as
well.  Smaller firms do not always pay the minimum wage or
bonuses.  The Ministry of Labor sets worker health and safety
standards, which also apply in the export processing zones, but
enforcement and inspection are uneven.