Egypt Issues - 2024

Disputes - international

Egypt-Gaza Strip: constructed a barrier and established a buffer zone on its border with Gaza to halt the passage of weapons and militants through cross-border smuggling tunnels and pressure the Palestinian HAMAS terrorist group that runs the Gaza Strip

Egypt-Ethiopia: Ethiopia's construction of a large dam (the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam) on the Blue Nile in northern Ethiopia since 2011 has become a focal point of relations with Egypt and Sudan; Egypt has described the giant hydroelectric project as an existential threat because of its potential to control the flow of the river that is a key source of water for the country; Ethiopia completed filling the dam in 2023

Refugees and internally displaced persons

refugees (country of origin): 70,021 (West Bank and Gaza Strip) (mid-year 2022); 52,446 (Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 20,970 (South Sudan) (refugees and asylum seekers), 21,105 (Eritrea) (refugees and asylum seekers), 15,585 (Ethiopia) (refugees and asylum seekers), 10,025 (Yemen) (refugees and asylum seekers), 6,815 (Iraq) (refugees and asylum seekers), 6,802 (Somalia) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2022); 464,827 (Sudan) (refugees since 15 April 2023), 155,825 (Syria) (2024)

stateless persons: 10 (2022)

Trafficking in persons

tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List — Egypt does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so; efforts included approving a new national strategy to combat trafficking, increasing convictions of traffickers, more than doubling the training of officials and partners, and issuing presidential directives to improve public awareness and protection; however, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts, compared with the previous reporting period, to expand its anti-trafficking capacity; officials identified the fewest victims since 2019 and investigations decreased; the government pursued trafficking charges to prosecute some non-trafficking offenses, undercutting efforts to hold traffickers criminally accountable; officials continued to penalize victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked; despite high risks for foreign nationals in Egypt, non-Egyptian victims are rarely identified; victim services and shelter remained insufficient and relied on international organizations and NGOs to provide some services, especially for men and foreign victims; for the third consecutive year, the government did not approve a draft law to expand labor protections to domestic workers; therefore, Egypt was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List (2023)

trafficking profile: human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Egypt, and Egyptians are exploited abroad; Egyptian children are subjected to sex trafficking and domestic service, street begging, drug trafficking, quarrying, and agricultural work in Egypt; traffickers, and some parents, force children, including Egyptian and Syrian children, to beg in the streets or exploit girls in sex trafficking; parents, husbands, and siblings subject women and girls to sex trafficking or forced domestic service to supplement family incomes; child sex tourism occurs primarily in Giza and Cairo, where individuals from the Arabian Gulf, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, purchase women and girls for “temporary” or “summer” marriages for commercial sex, as well as forced labor; parents force underage girls into permanent marriages where they are coerced into domestic servitude or commercial sex, and some husbands coerce their wives into sex trafficking or domestic servitude; some Egyptians attempting to migrate to Europe through Libya were subject to sex trafficking and forced labor; Egyptian children are exploited in sex trafficking and forced begging in Europe, and adults are forced into labor, construction, agriculture, domestic work, and low-paying service jobs in the region; men and women trafficked from South and Southeast Asia and East Africa are subjected to forced labor in domestic service, construction, and begging in Egypt; male refugees and migrants are vulnerable to forced labor; foreign domestic workers primarily from Bangladesh, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and parts of West Africa are highly vulnerable to forced labor; women and girls, including refugees and migrants from Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East are subjected to sex trafficking in Egypt; refugees and migrants from South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen who live in Egypt are at risk of trafficking; undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers, transiting Egypt from the Horn of Africa en route to Europe, face trafficking along the migration route (2023)

Illicit drugs

major source of precursor chemicals used in the production of illicit narcotics