When thoughts turn to children in
Africa in need of child sponsorship, Egypt is probably one of the least likely
countries to spring to mind. Yet, in what is a relatively prosperous country by
African standards with the second largest economy in the Arab world, most of its
102.3 million (2020) population live in overcrowded conditions almost exclusively
along the Nile and its delta making a living off agriculture. According to the most recent data for 2017-18, almost one third of Egypt's people live below the poverty line although, as ever, there are vast discrepancies in wealth distribution.
Egypt is in
116th place out of 189 countries and territories in 2019 when ranked in
terms of life expectancy, literacy, access to knowledge and the living
standards of a country. Issues affecting children in Egypt
include sub-standard education, where three million children 15-24yrs are
illiterate leading to high levels of youth unemployment; poor sanitation
facilities in urban areas leading to health issues; regular corporal
punishment and many children (8%) engaged in child labour. A recent UN report also concluded that
five million Egyptian children were deprived of appropriate housing and 1.6
million children under the age of five experience health and food
deprivation with 30% of children under 5yrs old stunted and two out of five
children in Upper Egypt living in poverty.
Egypt is a fairly young nation as around 33% of its population is less than 14 years old and 1.7 million of them live as orphans often taking what work is available simply because they have to to survive. For example reports note that children harvesting cotton may have to work for 11 hours a day in 40 degrees heat. Many of these children end up living on the streets of Cairo (see article below) where there are an indeterminate number living there; some put the figure in the tens of thousands, others put it at
over a million. Police records shed some insight into those numbers with 42,505
children being arrested on the streets in one year alone with 10,958 of them being
charged with being 'vulnerable to delinquency', that is they have committed
a crime just by having no responsible adult to care for them. The average
age of those arrested was thirteen years old. You can help when you sponsor a child in Egypt.
Child Sponsor Egypt: SOS Children's Villages
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Child Sponsor Egypt: Coptic Orphans
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Child Sponsor Egypt: Healing Grace
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Child Sponsor Egypt: Our Children KDEC
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Child Sponsor Egypt: Street Children in Egypt
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Child Sponsor Egypt: Volunteer in Egypt
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