2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Center for Women Policy Studies

national attention on the country’s trafficking
problem, raising it often in national and international
speeches. In early 2007, officials from the
administration of President Rafael Correa publicly
expressed their commitment to fighting human
trafficking. In November 2006, the national agency,
INNFA, launched a nationwide $1 million anti-trafficking
and anti-smuggling education campaign
geared toward vulnerable populations across
Ecuador. Postcards, stickers, and informational
materials have been distributed to schools in every
province. The government also produced anti-trafficking
billboards, posters, and radio spots over
the last year. The Ministry of Tourism launched
a national anti-sex tourism campaign in October
2006 that includes 11 government agencies that
signed an agreement to eradicate child sex tourism.
EGYPT (Tier 2 Watch List)
Egypt is a transit country for women trafficked from
Uzbekistan, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, and other
Eastern European countries to Israel for the purpose
of sexual exploitation, and may be a source for
children trafficked internally for commercial sexual
exploitation and domestic servitude. Reports indicate
that some of Cairo’s estimated 1 million street
children — both girls and boys — are exploited in
prostitution. In addition, wealthy men from the Gulf
reportedly travel to Egypt to purchase “temporary
marriages” with Egyptian women, including in some
cases girls who are under age 18, often apparently as
a front for commercial sexual exploitation facilitated
by the females’ parents and marriage brokers. Some
Egyptian cities may also be destinations for sex tourism.
Children were also recruited from rural areas
for domestic service in cities; some of these children
may face conditions of involuntary servitude, such
as restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages,
threats, and physical or sexual abuse.
The Government of Egypt does not fully comply
with the minimum standards for the elimination of
trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts
to do so. Egypt is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for
a second consecutive year for its failure to provide
evidence of increasing efforts to combat trafficking
in persons, particularly in the area of law enforcement.
The government also does not provide
rehabilitation aid or other protection services to
trafficking victims. Egypt typically returns foreign
trafficking victims to their embassies for assistance.
Egypt should make a serious effort to increase
law enforcement activity against the trafficking
of minors, institute formal victim identification
procedures to ensure that trafficking victims are not
punished or otherwise treated as criminals, and
provide protection services for victims.
Prosecution
Egypt made no discernible efforts to prosecute and
punish trafficking crimes this year. The Egyptian
penal code does not prohibit all forms of trafficking,
but the constitution does prohibit forced
labor through its Article 13. Other laws, including
those against rape and abduction, could be used
to prosecute trafficking offenses, but are not. Child
domestic workers are not protected by Egypt’s labor
laws as other child laborers are. The government
provided no evidence of investigations, arrests,
or prosecutions for trafficking offenses, including
involuntary servitude of child domestic servants.
According to media reports, security forces in
Sinai rescued four Russian women who may have
been victims of trafficking, and returned them to
the custody of the Russian embassy pending their
deportation. In late April, police in Mahallah el-
Kobra arrested 16 individuals in connection with
an alleged trafficking ring that obtained women for
exploitation in prostitution in the Gulf states. Egypt
should significantly increase investigations, prosecutions,
and punishments for trafficking offenses,
including investigations of allegations of trafficking
in children for commercial sexual exploitation and
domestic servitude, and the trafficking of foreigners
through Egypt. For a third year in a row, the government
failed to take any steps to draft a comprehensive
anti-trafficking law.
Protection
Egypt made no efforts to protect trafficking victims
during the reporting period. The government does
not offer protection services to victims of involuntary
domestic servitude, though it operates a hotline
for children to report complaints of abuse. There
are reports of police arresting street children for
prostitution and treating them as criminals rather
than victims. In prisons or detention centers, law
enforcement officers may further mistreat these
victims through verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.
Egypt does not have formal victim identification
procedures, so foreign victims of trafficking are
detained as illegal immigrants; the government
usually delivers possible trafficking victims to their
embassies for repatriation. These victims are not
offered legal alternatives to removal to countries in
which they may face hardship or retribution. The
government does not actively encourage victims
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