Media businessman Mohamed al-Amin arrested for assault of minors at orphanage he funded

Prominent businessman and media mogul Mohamed al-Amin was arrested on Friday on charges of human trafficking and of assaulting three girls under the age of 18 who lived in an orphanage he funded.

The orphanage was opened last year with the Social Solidarity Ministry’s approval despite a governmental ban on licensing new residential homes for orphans that has been in force since 2014.

In a statement after Amin’s arrest, Social Solidarity Minister Nevine El-Kabbag said that she was unable to comment on the scope of the violations because it is an ongoing investigation and that the matter is now in the hands of the Public Prosecution.

Despite the 2014 prohibition on licensing new institutions for orphans, the Ayadi Amina (Safe Hands) orphanage in Beni Suef was opened by Amin in March 2021 in a ceremony attended by journalists and government officials, most notably the Beni Suef governor and the social solidarity minister.

Undersecretary for the Social Solidarity Ministry in Beni Suef, Ihsan Abu Zeid, told the press at the time that she had contacted Amin in August 2020 to ask him to establish a home to help orphaned girls, to which Amin had agreed. 

The manner in which government officials approached Amin, according to a source from the Social Solidarity Ministry, is a common way for the ministry to work around budget limitations while still being able to institute new orphanages.

The ministry gave Amin an empty building that the ministry had designated years ago to house an orphanage, while the businessman secured the funding needed to furnish the building, cover expenses for the children and to pay the salaries of the orphanage’s supervisors, said the source. The ministry began to move orphans between the ages of six and 18 to the new institution, starting with one new resident in 2020 and followed by ten more in 2021.

If the ministry wants to establish a new care home of any kind, it looks for a financier, the source said. This process can help navigate bureaucratic obstacles such as red tape or regulations, such as the suspension on licensing.

“There is a difference between the opening and the licensing,” media advisor to the solidarity minister Mohamed Abdel Moneim told Mada Masr, adding that the orphanage obtained a license earlier and that the March event marked only the opening. Abdel Moneim did not specify when the institution was licensed.

Investigations into the assault charges against Amin include the testimonies of three girls aged between 13 and 17, according to an activist who documented Amin’s assaults on Facebook. The girls were moved first from a Giza orphanage to Amin's orphanage in Beni Suef, and later to Amin’s private villa in the North Coast, where he “hugged” them. 

The girls were later returned to Ayadi Amina where Amin reportedly attempted to assault them one by one, locked up the ones that turned down his advances and threatened them to keep silent.

Activist Ramy al-Gebaly said that the girls had contacted one of the orphanage’s employees to tell them about what happened to them, and that the employee informed ministry officials. 

When the ministry's officials questioned the orphanage’s supervisors, they accused the girls of misbehaving, according to Gebaly. Ministry officials ultimately transferred the three girls to another site two months after the incident, where they were interviewed by psychologists about the incident.

Seven girls between five and seven years old were also transferred from Ayadi Amina to an orphanage in 6th of October City. Upon their arrival, they complained of a urinary tract infection and it was found after examination that they had also been subject to assault, which the new orphanage reported to the Public Prosecution, according to Gebaly.

The Public Prosecution said on Saturday that it had received a report from the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood on December 10 after assault allegations against Amin circulated on social media. 

The prosecution said it monitored the news, questioned some of the victims and received testimonies from the director of the government-run Child Rescue Room, a specialist at the Social Solidarity Ministry and a number of psychiatrists.

Solidarity Minister Nevine El-Kabbag said on Saturday that her ministry informed the prosecution about the incident after coordinating with the concerned authorities and that the orphanage was closed after “violations.”

The ministry source described rape as “common” in care homes in comments to Mada Masr, pointing to insufficient ministry supervision, insufficient staffing and the absence of punishment in the event of violations occurring.

Ayadi Amina was reportedly closed in November 2021, according to press reports published after Amin’s arrest, after ministry employees in Beni Suef demanded the minister step in due to the presence of an “unlicensed nursery” operating within the orphanage. 

Amin has occupied a prominent space in the media environment since 2011. He founded the CBC network, a controlling stake in which was acquired in 2018 by Egyptian Media Group, which is majority-owned by the General Intelligence Service. Amin also founded Modern Network and the Arab News Agency, and was a partner in Al-Nahar channel as well as chairing the board of Al-Watan newspaper until October 2015.

Amin was also on the board of one of Egypt's largest real estate developers, Amer Group, until he handed over half of his shares, worth LE1.2 billion, to the Tahya Masr Fund. He was appointed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as a member of Tahya Masr’s board of trustees in December 2014.