Crimes involving minors over the past two years have renewed Egypt’s debate over the legal definition of childhood and the limits of criminal responsibility. Demands for harsher punishment sit alongside concerns about weakening children’s legal protections. The disagreement centres on whether serious offences require a change to the age at which childhood ends, or a stronger child justice system. Defendants who were under 18 when an offence occurred are subject to special provisions of the Child Law. These differ from adult penalties, but do not exempt every minor from accountability.
One case that brought the dispute back into public discussion concerned the killing of a mother in Port Said in 2022. The convicted woman’s lawyer confirmed that her client, the victim’s daughter, was executed on 22 June 2026. Her juvenile accomplice was instead placed in a care institution because he had been under 15 at the time of the crime. The difference in their legal treatment follows their ages when the offence was committed, rather than their ages at sentencing or when the sentence was carried out.
The case revived calls to lower the upper age limit for childhood under the Child Law, allowing adult criminal penalties to be imposed for serious offences committed by people under 18. Supporters argue that social changes require such a response. Opponents emphasise children’s rights and maintain that those under 18 need rehabilitation, guidance and reintegration more than punishment and retribution.
Crimes that reopened the child justice debate
In April 2024, a 15-year-old Egyptian living in Kuwait incited an adult to lure a neighbouring child to his death in Shubra al-Kheima, Qalyubia governorate. The adult was paid to kill and mutilate the victim. According to the case, the instigator sought recordings of the killing and mutilation to sell through dark web sites for profit.
On 8 February 2026, the Shubra al-Kheima appellate criminal court upheld the adult defendant’s death sentence and a 15-year prison sentence for the juvenile defendant. The prison penalty applicable to minors is legally distinct from aggravated imprisonment, which Article 111 prohibits for defendants who were under 18 when the crime was committed.
In another case in Kafr al-Sheikh on 27 April 2025, 12-year-old Adham Helmy was hit by a bullet accidentally discharged from an unlicensed gun while he was with three children at one of their homes. Investigators reported that the weapon belonged to one child’s father and that the children pulled the injured boy outside after the shooting. Adham died on 7 May after ten days in intensive care. The incident should therefore not be presented as a collective murder conviction against all three children, particularly given the subsequent acquittal of two of them.
On 27 July 2025, the child criminal court ordered the child who fired the gun to be placed in a care institution, finding him criminally responsible for Adham’s death. It acquitted the other two children.
In October 2025, Ismailia witnessed another disturbing case. A schoolboy under 15 killed a classmate after luring him to his apartment while his family was away. He dismembered the body with an electric saw and left six body parts at different locations.
In February 2026, the first-instance court ordered the juvenile defendant’s placement in a care institution. The appeal court subsequently upheld an open-ended placement order in June, according to reporting on the ruling published on 13 June. In a separate case before Ismailia First Misdemeanour Court, the defendant’s father had received a first-instance sentence on 5 February of four years’ imprisonment and a fine of EGP 100,000 over charges connected to concealing the crime and its evidence. An order that does not specify the placement period at sentencing is nevertheless subject to statutory limits and judicial review.
In October 2025, a preparatory-school pupil died after a schoolmate attacked him with a screwdriver during a fight in al-Hisas village, Sherbin district, Dakahlia. Although the incident circulated as a school killing, the governorate’s education undersecretary said it occurred outside school premises and school hours. Prosecutors investigated and ordered the suspect’s detention at the time. The sources reviewed for this report do not contain a final judgment, so the case is not presented here as a definitive conviction.
In April 2026, two siblings, a 17-year-old secondary-school pupil and her 15-year-old brother, lured a 14-year-old girl in Mashtoul al-Qadi village, Zagazig district, Sharqia. They strangled her to steal her mobile phone and gold earring.
On 12 May 2026, Sharqia’s child criminal and misdemeanour court sentenced each sibling to 15 years in prison. The judgment was open to appeal; this report does not contain a final appellate ruling.
The Child Law and its underlying principles
Law No. 12 of 1996, amended by Law No. 126 of 2008, defines a child by reference to the age of 18. Among its central provisions, a defendant who was under 18 when an offence was committed cannot be sentenced to death, life imprisonment or aggravated imprisonment.
The child court ordinarily hears cases involving juvenile defendants. Only relatives, witnesses, lawyers, social supervisors and people specially authorised by the court may attend the trial. Article 122, however, provides an exception for a felony involving a child over 15 and an adult defendant when they must be prosecuted together. In that situation, jurisdiction falls to the criminal court or Supreme State Security Court, as applicable, which must examine the child’s circumstances. It is therefore inaccurate to say that children can never be tried before these courts.
The law provides graduated responses according to the child’s age when the act occurred. A child below seven who commits an act constituting a felony or misdemeanour is treated as being at risk, with the conditions necessary for safe upbringing threatened. Between seven and twelve, criminal responsibility is excluded, and the child court has exclusive jurisdiction to consider the child’s situation.
For children from twelve to below fifteen, the available measures include a reprimand, placement with a responsible carer, vocational training and rehabilitation, specified obligations, community service that does not harm physical or psychological health, judicial probation, placement in a specialist hospital, or placement in a social care institution. The latter is ordered without specifying a fixed duration at sentencing.
The court monitors the child through reports submitted by the institution at intervals of no more than two months. It may end or replace the measure as appropriate, and placement should last for the shortest possible period. In all cases, the statutory maximum is ten years for felonies and five years for misdemeanours.
Article 110, as amended by Law No. 7 of 2015, requires the measure to end when the person turns 18. In felony cases, however, the court may order up to two years of judicial probation at the prosecution’s request and after hearing the social supervisor. Where a person placed in a specialist hospital requires continued treatment, the article also provides for transfer to a hospital appropriate to their condition.
Under Article 111, a child over fifteen but under eighteen who commits an offence punishable by death, life imprisonment or aggravated imprisonment may instead receive a prison sentence. Where the offence is punishable by imprisonment, the child may receive detention of at least three months. These provisions were amended by Law No. 126 of 2008.
The maximum prison term applied to children between fifteen and eighteen is fifteen years, in line with Article 16 of the Penal Code, which sets the ordinary imprisonment range at three to fifteen years.
Article 112 prohibits holding children in detention or prison in the same place as adults. It also requires their classification by age, sex and type of offence during detention.
Cassation lawyer Mohamed Abdel Halim says the Child Law and its amendments rest on protection, reform and rehabilitation. A child or juvenile remains in psychological, intellectual and social development and therefore requires rules different from those applied to adults.
He points to Article 80 of Egypt’s Constitution, which defines a child as anyone under 18 and obliges the state to safeguard children’s rights, protect them from violence and exploitation, and uphold their best interests in procedures and decisions affecting them.
In his assessment, eighteen is consequently more than an ordinary legislative choice. It is a binding constitutional standard that lawmakers must respect when regulating child justice.
Modern criminal policy, he adds, no longer regards a juvenile as a smaller adult criminal deserving punishment. It regards the child as a person whose maturity remains incomplete and who needs guidance, reform and rehabilitation.
Drawing on comparative criminal justice research, Abdel Halim argues that treating more juveniles as adults can increase reoffending. He considers rehabilitation, training and psychological and social support more effective in protecting society over the long term.
Child justice aims to protect society as well as the child, Abdel Halim stresses, by preventing repeat offending and helping the young person return safely to their social environment.
Sisi describes a wider social problem
While attending selection interviews for applicants to the Egyptian Military Academy and military colleges in November 2025, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was asked whether the Child Law could be reconsidered to reconcile compassion for young defendants with justice for victims’ families.
The president responded that the issue was social as well as legal. Egypt already had many laws, he said, but the crisis concerned society.
He argued that solidarity depended on public awareness. The state could monitor schools comprehensively, he said, but families also had a role. He asked whether families across social groups approached the problem with the same awareness and made decisions serving that objective. His point was that social discipline and awareness could achieve results that placing an observer beside every person could not.
Sisi urged society to work together to protect children. He described a responsibility extending beyond legislation to the media, mosques, churches and families, alongside the state’s role in enforcing the law.
Supporters of change point to social shifts
Psychiatry consultant Gamal Froiz argues that social media, rapid technological and educational change, and the additional experiences shaping people’s behaviour have created a need to lower the upper age limit of childhood.
Speaking to Zawia3, Froiz says a child could be considered responsible from fourteen or fifteen and held accountable for a crime. He acknowledges that Egypt’s international treaty commitments stand in the way of such a change.
Abdel Halim, meanwhile, emphasises Egypt’s international obligations. Egypt joined the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, whose first article defines childhood by reference to the age of eighteen, unless majority is attained earlier under the applicable law. The convention requires a distinct child justice system that considers age and maturity and seeks rehabilitation and reintegration.
The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice, known as the Beijing Rules, likewise call for treatment appropriate to children’s psychological, social and age-related circumstances.
In General Comment No. 24 of 2019, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child emphasises strengthening, rather than reducing, safeguards in child justice. The comment distinguishes the minimum age of criminal responsibility from the age at which childhood ends. They are different thresholds: accountability before eighteen does not require the application of adult penalties.
Political sociology researcher Saeed Sadek attributes violence in society to inadequate upbringing alongside high birth rates. He argues that a preference for having many children persists even when households lack the resources for their education, financial support and care.
He tells Zawia3 that some parents have more children than they can support, then send them to work young, leave them on the streets or marry off underage daughters to reduce household costs. He considers these practices contributing factors in violence involving children.
Sadek supports lowering the threshold for adult punishment from eighteen to fifteen. In his view, the seriousness of murder should not be excused by childhood, and existing laws are too weak for violent offending. This is a demand to change sentencing rules, rather than a description of current law: those over fifteen can already face custodial penalties within the child justice system.
He also argues that some adults exploit the Child Law by encouraging children, including children living on the streets, to commit offences on the assumption that their age will spare them punishment. He calls for stronger deterrent legislation, extending his criticism to families that have children without the capacity to care for them.
In October 2025, then-MP Amira Abu Shoka called for a constitutional change to the legal age of childhood, linked to the nature of the offence and the offender’s understanding. She presented the demand as protection for the public and a response to increasingly serious crimes. The demand had not resulted in the change sought at the time of this report.
Changing age thresholds requires research
Tamer Shawky, professor of educational psychology at Ain Shams University’s Faculty of Education, says developmental age boundaries should derive from psychological and physiological research. Each stage involves physical, physiological and psychological changes, which inform how its beginning and end are understood.
Shawky tells Zawia3 that bringing a developmental threshold forward requires scientific measures. Ending childhood at fifteen instead of eighteen is not a straightforward decision, he argues, because the existing boundary draws on international research into human development across age groups.
At the same time, he believes social changes in Egypt have contributed to crime. He points to social media and the dark web as environments children may enter beyond their parents’ supervision.
He also identifies a lack of positive role models and recreational activities. In his account, children who feel constrained and have no constructive outlets may express negative emotions through violence. Activities, he argues, can offer a healthier way to release that energy.
Reducing violence among young people, Shawky says, requires educational and psychological approaches combining encouragement and deterrence. He calls for investigating adolescents’ problems, providing activities, and promoting positive role models grounded in values and ethics. On the deterrent side, he supports stronger penalties for adolescents.
He argues that adolescents increasingly understand the distinction between right and wrong, even while their age is characterised by impulsiveness. Referring also to his understanding of religious teachings, he believes penalties can be made more severe for those over fifteen so that age does not, in his view, prevent meaningful punishment.
For juvenile homicide, however, Shawky rejects the death penalty, noting that many countries have abolished it even for adults. He supports deterrent penalties intended to prevent reoffending after release, while leaving their legal design to specialists.
Legislative change or a stronger justice system?
Lawyer Haitham Saad supports calls to reduce the constitutional and statutory age of childhood. He points to serious crimes in which sentences were reduced because the defendant was a child, and argues that changing patterns of offending require legislative intervention. At minimum, he proposes applying adult criminal penalties to those over fourteen for offences against the person.
Saad tells Zawia3 that children may undertake seasonal work under authorisation involving the governor and education authorities, that vocational training is permitted from fourteen and work from fifteen, and that litigation capacity in some personal-status matters begins at fifteen. He proposes using these thresholds by analogy in criminal cases. This is his proposed legal reasoning, not an existing rule permitting the replacement of child justice protections. An age threshold for work or legal capacity in a particular matter does not automatically change the constitutional protection of childhood.
Asked about conflict with the Constitution and international agreements, Saad suggests legislation could preserve the definition of childhood while specifying adult penalties for homicide committed by those over fifteen. He believes this could avoid the contradiction and respond to serious offending. This is his interpretation of a proposed measure. The opposing view below relies on constitutional and treaty protections, and his suggested wording is neither current legislation nor a guarantee that such a measure would be constitutional.
Abdel Halim takes the opposite position: removing those aged fourteen to eighteen from juvenile protections would depart from the principles on which the Child Law itself is based.
He says that excluding this age group from child justice, or treating its members as adults, would create strong grounds for a constitutional challenge under Article 80. It would also place Egyptian legislation in conflict with obligations arising from the Convention on the Rights of the Child and related international instruments.
If the objective is instead to strengthen particular measures or improve responses to serious juvenile offending, he argues that this can be achieved without changing the legal definition of childhood or its constitutional guarantees. Effective deterrence does not necessarily require lowering the age threshold or reducing protections. He proposes developing the child justice system itself.
His proposals include retaining eighteen as the upper threshold for childhood, consistent with the Constitution, Child Law and international agreements, while creating a more graduated range of measures according to the seriousness of the offence and the conduct involved. He supports stronger measures for serious juvenile crimes, including intentional homicide, rape, drug trafficking and participation in criminal groups, without subjecting children to adult trial rules.
He also proposes specialised reform and rehabilitation institutions combining psychological treatment, behavioural rehabilitation, education and vocational training, rather than relying on conventional institutional placement alone. Where appropriate, children should be required to participate in rehabilitation, psychological treatment, training and addiction programmes. Child courts should have stronger powers to monitor these measures and periodically assess each child’s response.
Abdel Halim further proposes examining the responsibility of guardians or carers where serious neglect is shown to be directly connected to offending. He calls for support for families, schools and social care institutions as the first line of prevention, alongside stronger aftercare following completion of a measure to support reintegration and prevent reoffending.
For Abdel Halim, eighteen is more than a number chosen by a legislature. It is an established constitutional and international standard of child protection. Reducing it to fourteen would, he concludes, raise serious constitutional and legal problems and could weaken safeguards without necessarily achieving the promised reduction in crime.
