To mama Suzanne

I do not think that the Egyptian Regime nor the national council for Childhood and motherhood headed by the first lady saw that coming.

Do you remember that food diary of the Guardian’s reporter he had written from Cairo from couple of weeks ??

Well another two Guardian reporters made one hell of a report that caused a lot of Stir in Egypt , making the regime so so angry.

Dan McDougal and photographer Robin Hammond showed the western reader the cost of the luxury Egyptian cotton products they buy from Harrods and Neiman Marcus

The Child Labour in the Egyptian cotton field

In the photo is Abdel Rahman ,a 6 years old kid working in cotton fields

Also here is another shocking photo slideshow to the West

Look I must explain something , first of all this is not new thing , Egyptian Children in the country side whether in Nile Delta or in Upper Egypt work in fields , they always work helping their parents in the fields , especially in the cotton fields .

Nor it is something strange thing to find underage teenagers and children working in baladi “local” upholstery shops to make cotton mattresses and pillows

Of course I do not need to tell you that this something common in third world countries.

Their poor families instead of begging or breaking the law send their kids to work and learn a profession that provide them with few money helping them to live especially nowadays.

Families in country side for several reasons have many children :

• To create some sort of clan.
• Sometimes to have boys .
• Some ladies believe having many children can prevent their husbands from re-marrying again as they can’t afford another economic burden of sustaining another house.
• Most of them use those kids to support the family economically.

The last point unfortunately became the main reason nowadays due to the hard economic situation and the fact that the Government speaks all the time about the low class but does not anything to help it in real life.

I know that the civilized west refuses the idea of having children work from early age , especially when they work in hard conditions , I agree with that ; it is unfair to use Child labour but on the other hand we must put in our consideration the reason why their families make them work instead of learning and enjoying their childhood , it is not because their families do not want to enjoy their childhood on the contrary but again it is because of the economic situation , bad economic policies of the Government ,which unfortunately pro-western one .

For God Sake some families make their children drop out schools because they can’t afford its expenses.

In these hard days I think it is better to make those children work in Cotton fields and upholstery then in prostitution and human trafficking .

Anyhow back to the Guardian’s report , the report caused a lot of anger from the Government side , first it made the first lady appears like a liar with her campaigns against Child Labour .

Second it showed as if the Egyptian Government supports this labour ,well it does not support nor it minds ,it does not care if any 80 years old woman working in collecting worms from Cotton !!??

Of course the Egyptian government issued a stupid statement saying that it is conspiracy against our famous Egyptian cotton !!

despite the fact the Egyptian production of cotton decreased in a very fearful rate because of the ministry of agriculture decisions.

Back to Mama Suzanne , it is so silly to speak about Childhood day and night and keep saying to the low classes to educate and let their children to enjoy life ,if these classes can’t find money to feed them !!??

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