Creating a Brighter Tomorrow for Girls in Egypt

Child marriage is all too common among  young females in numerous developing countries, but in Egypt, an innovative educational pilot wants to prevent their childhoods from ending too soon by offering them a brighter tomorrow instead.

As Daily News Egypt reports, a new vocational training pilot will empower girls to thrive in the labor market, using learning as a driver for a positive route out of child marriage.

Upending a Long-Established Tradition
Green Me documents that in Egypt, thousands of girls and adolescents are pushed into early marriages, a tradition that represents a violation of children’s rights. It is often as a result of poverty, a lack of education, and a system that fails to adequately protect them. Although marriage under 18 cannot be registered in today’s Egypt, there is still no law explicitly making it a crime.

This context is covered in more detail by a new report on child marriage from the Women’s Initiative of the Institute of Global Politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. It defines Egypt as a country in which child marriage prevalence rates remain high, ranking it the one with the 13th highest overall burden of child marriage. While it notes a decrease in the rate of child marriage from 27 percent in 1996 to 16 percent in 2021, which it attributes to increases in education levels among Egyptian women and girls, it shares that over seven million of them were married under the age of 18. It also notes that child marriage is most acute in the poorest households, in rural communities, and among the least-educated girls.

This sustained prevalence is why this new initiative to help girls at risk of child marriage, is such welcome news. It is the fruit of a collaboration between Egypt’s National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), and the United Nations Population Fund.

Sahir El-Sombaty, President of the NCCM, highlights the economic and social dimensions of child marriage. She describes the practice as a serious violation of children’s rights that leads to lower education levels, a greater risk of gender-based violence, and poor reproductive health indicators, including increased maternal mortality.

The NCCM,  as Egypt’s State Information Service explains, was formed in 1988 to advocate for child welfare, striving for protection, care and human dignity from the perspective of the rights of local families in general, and those of mothers in particular.

It has a broad remit to initiate policies and programs that protect Egyptian children from all types of violence, abuse, and sexual and commercial exploitation, as well as working with relevant state bodies to enforce the rights of minors to safe shelter, emotional and cognitive development, especially at-risk children.

At a recent roundtable entitled “Economic Empowerment as a Pivotal Tool to Reduce Child Marriage,” El-Sombaty revealed that her organization is now working with the Egyptian Ministry of Justice and religious bodies to create a formal legal framework to criminimalize the practice. This will give teeth to current laws banning the registration of marriages to those under 18.

Empowering Young Females Through Learning and Awareness-Raising
The training that aims to give girls skills leading to an independent future, will initially be rolled out in the governorates of Assiut, Sohag, and Fayoum. These are areas have some of the highest rates of child marriage in Egypt. It will revolve around practical skills in traditional heritage crafts, and will focus on trades that can lead to employment or small business opportunities. But it will  also involve modern digital skills that are in tune with current market needs.

As E-Sombaty shares: “Economic empowerment of girls is one of the most important tools for sustainable protection.” She emphasises that the strategy goes beyond providing income, because it aims to build skills that enable girls to integrate into the local labor market.

Significantly, the drive against child marriage is accompanied by extensive awareness-raising projects that aim to prevent child marriage by warning of the health and social risks. These embrace activities for child protection units, community education departments, and nonprofit specialists.

The NCCM is also calling for parallel efforts to curtail school dropout rates as well as child labor. This is because both of these are seen as the main drivers of child marriage. Meanwhile, this child advocacy body continues to intervene in cases reported on a national child helpline that permits protection committees to move swiftly to halt such marriages.