Video filming: Ahmed El-Sheikh
Cover design: Zawia3
Infographic design: Nahla Mohamed
The child Nourhan Mohamed (pseudonym), 13, born in Dakahlia governorate in Egypt’s Delta, was severely beaten by her father, who forced her to go out to work on agricultural land with her mother 4 years ago. The father did not respond to his daughter’s refusal to work in this field, and the child found no way out but to submit to his orders despite her frail build and her wish not to work in that occupation; but she went out in order to help herself continue her educational journey and to help her mother raise her four sisters.
Nourhan began working in agriculture when she was nine years old, and the girl, who is now in the first year of preparatory school, says: “The work affected my studies, as I used to be absent from school several days a week to go to work, which caused my grades to drop; that pushed me to reduce the number of times I went to work to two days a week during the past year.” But while she works in agriculture, she aspires to become a painter one day.
Like Nourhan, some poor families in Egypt’s villages force their young daughters to work in agriculture at an early age, for a meagre wage, in exchange for long and gruelling working hours that are disproportionate to their physical build. The author of this investigation documented 10 stories of Egyptian girls who were forced to work on agricultural land to support their families while they were under the legal age, as this investigation reveals, amid an absence of oversight by the Ministry of Labour (“formerly Manpower”) and social insurance.
Some girls are forced not to complete their educational journey or obtain an intermediate certificate, especially as work in agriculture requires the girls to leave at dawn and travel for long hours to reach the fields where they work, which makes it impossible for them to attend school on working days.
The risks do not stop at the gruelling nature of the young girls’ work, as the girls are transported to the fields by inhumane means, which exposes them to road accidents while travelling and to serious injuries; the author of this investigation documented 82 traffic accidents during the transport of male and female agricultural workers between 2017 and 2024.
This happens through the direct mediation of brokers who exploit the girls’ families to secure work for them in exchange for taking a share of their already low daily wage, by exploiting legal loopholes in the Egyptian Labour and Child laws that allow them to employ these boys and girls.
Working despite injuries
The violation grows with the ill-treatment the girls are subjected to by employers, including indifference to the physical injuries they sustain, and this is what happened to Nourhan when the employer forced her to finish her work on his land despite her injury.
Nourhan travelled to several governorates to work there at an early age (Giza, Beheira, Sharqia and Damietta), and she also worked with her mother for a year without being paid, as they considered her to be (helping her mother); she then received her first wage at the age of ten. Her daily wage currently stands at EGP 50, equivalent to 0.99 dollars. On one occasion her foot was broken while gathering the crop on a piece of land in Giza governorate, after she slipped because of water on the ground, but she received treatment over two months at her family’s expense, after the landowner disclaimed responsibility for the costs of her treatment, saying: “It has nothing to do with me.” She was injured again while gathering the crop in December 2024 on a piece of land in Dakahlia governorate, where her hand was cut and bled, but she was surprised when the employer tied her hand with a piece of cloth, repeating: “Come on, finish your work”, and she finished her work as if nothing had happened, forgetting her pain.
Shereen Reda (15 years old), a pupil in the third year of preparatory school, was no better off than Nourhan; she too started working when she was 10 years old, and she worked 12 hours a day including travel time, for a wage of no more than EGP 150, equivalent to 2.98 dollars. She was injured in her eye while picking the cotton crop, and developed weak eyesight, with a sense of disturbed vision during her work, which ultimately forced her to receive treatment at her family’s own expense because the employer refused to bear the costs of treatment.
Economic exploitation
The “labour contractor” takes charge of securing agricultural work for the young girls and acts as the link between the girls’ guardians and the employers, but in return he shares the girls’ already low daily wage: he deducts a sum of money from the daily wage in exchange for securing the work, and then deducts another sum for securing a means of transport to and from the fields, when the employer refuses to bear the cost of transport.
According to the testimony of Nourhan and her colleagues, the contractor deducts EGP 10, equivalent to $0.20, from each male or female worker in exchange for arranging the job for them, so that her net wage becomes EGP 40, equivalent to $0.80. The child considers that her work does not provide her with a sufficient economic return or decent conditions, as her working hours range between seven and eight hours, during which she picks several crops such as (cotton, onions, garlic, tomatoes and aubergines). The young girl ends her account saying: “If my economic circumstances were better than this, I would not have worked in this occupation.”
The same thing happens with Sama (16 years old), as the labour contractor arranges work for them and deducts EGP 10 from each person in exchange for arranging the means of transport. She says: “The contractor does not deserve this sum, which leaves a net wage of EGP 90, equivalent to $1.79 .” The young girl returns home after an arduous working trip, her body exhausted, unable to work, move or study her lessons, saying: “I dream of becoming an engineer one day, and of fulfilling my mother’s wish that I complete my educational journey, so that she does not have to work again for our sake.”
Women labour contractors: their families ask us to employ them
For seven years, Mahfouza El-Sayed, 45, born in Damietta governorate, worked as a labour contractor, and she left her occupation in 2022; she currently works as an agricultural labourer after her economic circumstances deteriorated.
Mahfouza says: “During my work as a contractor, I used to receive from the landowner a daily fee of one pound per worker, while the worker received a daily wage of EGP 50 from the employer”, explaining that her work was confined to the villages of Damietta governorate, that arranging the means of transport for the workers and paying its cost was the employer’s task, and that the means of transport used varied between “a small pickup truck and a farm tractor”.
She adds: “Sometimes the employer does not arrange the means of transport and tells us to walk on foot, if the distance is not great.”
Mahfouza evaded answering how safe the means of transport used to carry the workers were, but she referred to an accident in which one of the female workers, who was her neighbour, was run over under a farm tractor they were riding after it overturned with them during 2023.
Mahfouza often received requests from parents to employ their sons or daughters as agricultural labour because of their economic circumstances. She says: “Their ages range from 12 to 15 years; I used to choose from among them those who were orphans, as they had the first claim to work.” She remembers the last girl she employed, two years ago, saying that she was a 15-year-old child who had dropped out of school, whose mother asked for a job opportunity on the land to be found for her, and she received a daily wage ranging from EGP 20 to 25 at the time, equivalent to between 0.65 and 0.81 dollars (the dollar stood at EGP 30.85 on 22/12/2023 at Al-Ahly and Misr banks), “and the employers did not provide any meals for the workers during their work, and the children bore the same workload as those older than them and worked the same number of working hours, without any distinction or differentiation because of their ages”.
Fayza Abbas (pseudonym), 50, works as a labour contractor in Belqas, Dakahlia governorate, and over the years of her work parents have often asked her to employ their sons or daughters, at a rate equivalent to 60% for the former against 40% for the latter, and their ages range from 12 to 15 years.
The last girl Fayza employed, two years ago, was her granddaughter. She says: “She was not over 12 years old at the time; my daughter asked me to provide a job opportunity for her to help with the expenses of her studies, especially as her husband is deceased.” Her granddaughter still works and studies at the same time, and her daily wage ranges from EGP 60 to 70, equivalent to between 1.19 and 1.39 dollars, for work lasting between 8 and 11 hours, and Fayza considers working in this occupation harsh on young children.
Death on the way to work
More than one girl we met confirms that the means of transport provided by employers to carry them to and from the farms are dangerous and unsafe, which has caused several accidents that sometimes cost lives.
Male and female workers, including young girls, are exposed to road accidents because of unsafe means of transport such as “a farm tractor or a small pickup or medium truck”, usually arranged for them by the labour contractor, according to the testimonies we documented from workers, their relatives and contractors.
The author of this investigation prepared a database from news archives covering accidents involving agricultural workers, and the results of analysing the database showed that 82 transport accidents took place during the period from 28 April 2017 to 2 January 2025; small pickup trucks ranked first with 51 accidents, followed by medium trucks with 18 accidents, followed by microbuses with six accidents.
The 82 accidents in total resulted in 988 injured and 125 dead. The total number of accidents suffered by workers, whether because of the means of transport or because of the work itself, reached 107 accidents; traffic accidents ranked first with 74 accidents, while poisoning incidents ranked second with 8 incidents, followed by run-over accidents with a total of 4. Beheira governorate ranked first with 63 accidents, and Dakahlia and Ismailia governorates came second with 9 accidents each.
Nourhan does not forget the accident she suffered with her mother while they were on their way to work on the agricultural land, because of the means of transport she describes as “unsafe”, and she adds: “A year ago we were riding in a medium truck with the workers, when it overturned, which caused my mother to fall on her back while my head struck the metal of the vehicle. I remained under treatment for a week, and the employer did not cover the costs of our treatment. Six months before that there was another accident, when her foot got caught in the iron at the back of the vehicle, causing her an injury as a result of which she nearly lost her leg, and as usual the employer refused to bear any treatment costs.”
Shereen Mahmoud (38 years old) broke her arm when she fell from the vehicle while travelling to work, and her treatment lasted a month and a half. A year after this accident, the truck carrying her and her colleagues overturned because of a speed bump, which caused colleagues of mine to fall on their heads, and the employer did not cover the costs of treatment.
Work in exchange for giving up studies
The studies of Yasmine Mostafa (pseudonym), 16, were affected by her work when she was 12 years old. She says: “I had to be absent from school several times to go with my mother to work on the agricultural land, and I used to give the school the excuse of illness when I was at the preparatory stage”, which caused her grades to drop and forced her to enrol in commercial secondary school (an intermediate certificate). She left her work in agriculture, but because of economic circumstances she went back to work as a cleaner at a school so that she could go to her own school.
May Reda (20 years old) also lost her chance to enrol in general secondary school, and with it her childhood dream of becoming a doctor was lost; she began working with her mother in agriculture when she was 14 years old, and she had to miss school because she was working to secure the costs of her studies. She says: “Our economic circumstances did not allow me to study medicine or enrol in general secondary school, even though I obtained the total grade that qualified me for it.”
Demands for safe means of transport and health insurance
The head of the Farmers’ Syndicate in Dakahlia governorate, Naguib Mohamedy, considers that the wage an agricultural worker receives, estimated at EGP 100, equivalent to $1.99, does not help him make a living, calling on the competent authorities to insure them and pay them an insurance pension, and to apply the agricultural workers’ law to them in order to protect them.
Mohamedy estimates the number of agricultural workers across Egypt at 20 to 25 million, with women making up 50% of them, equivalent to 12.5 million, after their work in this occupation increased as a result of poor economic conditions, while boys and girls make up 12%. Mohamedy calls for comprehensive health insurance for farmers and workers and for the provision of safe means of transport and roads for them, describing the majority of the means of transport as “open and inhumane”.
Mohamedy calls on the competent authorities to regulate agricultural labour and raise its wages so that the workers can live a decent life, along with reinstating the agricultural worker’s pension, which was halted years ago.
A legislative flaw and a violation of international conventions
Article 26 of Labour Law No. 12 of 2003 provides that purely agricultural labour, domestic labour and those in a similar position are excluded from this law, as the competent ministry (Agriculture and Labour) is responsible for the policy and monitoring of the employment of irregular labour, in particular seasonal agricultural workers, sea workers, mine and quarry workers and contracting workers.
The competent minister, in consultation with the ministers concerned and the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, issues the decisions determining the rules regulating the employment of these categories, the occupational safety and health, transport and subsistence requirements to be adopted with regard to them, and the financial and administrative regulations governing this employment. In Article 97 of the Unified Labour Law of 2003, Part Six, women working in purely agricultural work were excluded, and the law also excluded, in Article 103, all rights relating to child labour in purely agricultural work.
Data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) for 2022 reveal that agriculture and fishing ranked first in terms of the number of people employed, at 18.9%, equivalent to 5,273,000 workers, while the average weekly working hours stand at 43 hours, at a rate of seven hours a day over six working days, and the average daily wage for workers in the agricultural sector is EGP 105.60, equivalent to $4.27 at the time the agency prepared its data, as the dollar stood at 24.71 on 31/12/2022 at the state-owned National Bank of Egypt.
Dr Hany Helal, a child rights expert, believes that there is a problem in the Labour and Child laws with regard to agricultural labour, explaining that the law excluded agricultural labour from any regulation and that this category is therefore not covered by legislation; although the previous laws dealt with child labour from the age of 15, the following categories, “labour in purely agricultural work, domestic servants and labour for their own families”, were excluded from all the legislation on protecting children from work, which constitutes a constitutional and legal flaw.
He adds: “Agricultural labour, and itinerant agricultural child labourers in particular, who work through contractors, have not been covered by legislation and do not fall under the law. If a girl is beaten by her father and forced to work, the accused is punished on a charge of endangering a child, the stipulated penalty for which is six months’ imprisonment, while the labour contractor, if he takes money from the workers to employ them or to provide a means of transport, is punished on a charge of economic exploitation, but he is not punished for employing them below the legal age”, attributing this to the legislative flaw in the Child Law with regard to employing children in purely agricultural work, in violation of international conventions.
According to Helal, for itinerant agricultural child labourers who are killed because of unsafe means of transport and work injuries, their employer is not punished for employing them but is punished under occupational safety laws, and he pointed to their submission of a proposal for a full legislative amendment to add occupational safety and means of transport and their classification, which has not so far been adopted by the competent authorities. He adds: “There is no legislation that criminalises forcing an injured child to work, as the employer is punished under the work injuries law, but its penalties are minor and do not rise to the level of the dangers of employing children.”
Helal called for a legislative amendment of the Child and Labour laws and for the criminalisation of child labour, along with the regulation of agricultural labour in accordance with provisions that protect them from the dangers of this type of work, which is considered among the worst forms of labour, because of shortcomings in national legislation and the absence of a law to protect them; this results in the working hours of agricultural labour not being regulated by law, as they are a category excluded from the law.
Hisham El-Hosary, head of the Agriculture Committee of the House of Representatives, considered that the use of unsafe means of transport, the employment of children as agricultural labour below the legal age and forcing those of them who are injured to work constitute explicit legal violations, stressing to everyone working in the agricultural field that workers must meet the legal age, and that if children are employed, this constitutes an explicit legal violation whose perpetrator receives a deterrent penalty. El-Hosary pointed to the visit of a European Union delegation to the jasmine fields in Gharbia governorate, where the companies receiving it from Egypt stipulated that children not be employed in gathering it and gave them support for not employing workers below the legal age.
The “author of this investigation” contacted Abdel Wahab Khodr, head of public relations at the Ministry of Labour and of public relations at the Social Insurance Authority, but she did not receive a response to her questions by the time the investigation was published. The “author of this investigation” obtained the informed consent of all the sources who were interviewed during work on the investigation.
This investigation was produced under the “Unknown Record” fellowship from the Women Who Won the War platform.
