‘Official’ number of street children called into question

The Egyptian Coalition on Children’s Rights refuted the number of street children announced by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, as well as the method by which it collected the data, the coalition said in a statement on Tuesday.  

On Monday, the ministry held a press conference announcing that there are 16,019 street children in over 2,500 areas in Egypt. The ministry said it implemented a comprehensive survey, whereby researchers were deployed to 27 governorates at the same time, recording the number from the morning of October 22, 2014 until the following morning.

In its statement, the coalition said it had rejected this process from the beginning, due to the lack of a unified definition of the term “street children,” as well as the absence of an agreed upon methodology and list of parties responsible for collecting the data. 

It added that the head of the coalition had repeatedly discussed these challenges with the ministry before. 

The coalition said this survey can be used to assess the condition of street children, and can be developed to identify what is needed to confront this issue. It can also be a launching pad for cooperation on this issue, the statement said.  

The coalition warned against announcing official figures that can be misleading or controversial, adding that the ultimate goal is to protect street children.

The ministry said that over 3,800 researchers and officials from the ministry as well as the National Council for Social and Criminal Studies and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood participated in the survey, along with researchers from civil society.

However, in statements to local press, National Council for Childhood and Motherhood Head Azza al-Ashmawy described the figures by the ministry as “inaccurate,” stating that collecting official numbers of street children is not possible.

She added that the council has reservations on the methods and mechanisms used to collect the data.

In its statement, the coalition referred to the council’s position on the ministry’s announcement, saying that raises further questions on the results.

During the press conference, Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali said that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is paying special attention to the issue, and that he said that the government will not be able to combat it on its own, but rather needs the help of civil society and the private sector.

The coalition asked Sisi not to take this number into account, and to just focus on the condition of street children. They advised the president to hold a national conference with the relevant parties in order to agree upon the best method to confront this issue, as well as implement the mechanisms that protect children in the Constitution.