The incident involving two underage sisters in Monufia Governorate, who were subjected to repeated rape by their uncle, resulting in their pregnancy, has sparked widespread debate over the right of victims of sexual assault to access abortion. Egyptian law criminalizes abortion even in cases of rape and compels victims to carry pregnancies imposed on them by force, leaving them vulnerable to social stigma and forcing them to give birth to children deprived of their basic rights to establish lineage, legal identity, and inheritance.
According to media statements by the victims’ lawyer, Islam El-Banby, the children, upon birth, will not be allowed to live with their mothers or families. Instead, they will be placed in care institutions affiliated with the Ministry of Social Solidarity, and will be given new identities and names to ensure their legal and social protection.
At the same time, feminist activists and civil society organizations advocating for women’s rights launched a hashtag titled “Safe Abortion for Girls in Rape Crimes.” The Cairo Institute for Development and Law stated that forcing a child to continue a pregnancy resulting from rape constitutes a compounded violation of her rights, calling for guaranteed access to safe abortion services as a right linked to life, health, and dignity.
In recent years, Egypt has focused on tightening penalties for perpetrators of rape crimes, which Egyptian law defines as unlawful sexual intercourse occurring without the consent of the female victim. Perpetrators face life imprisonment or the death penalty under aggravating circumstances, such as when the offender is an ascendant relative or holds authority over the victim. However, the law does not address the rights of survivors or provide a health and psychological framework for dealing with them, reflecting a gap between official discourse and legislative practice.
Despite Egypt’s ratification of most international human rights conventions, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which have recommended amending laws that criminalize abortion and ensuring access to comprehensive healthcare services, including safe abortion in cases of rape, the country still lacks legislation that guarantees protection for women and underage girls in matters related to reproductive rights, particularly in cases of pregnancy resulting from sexual assault.
While the state declares its commitment to international agreements and imposes stricter penalties on perpetrators, victims’ rights remain suspended between official discourse and actual practice. The absence of clear legislation allowing access to safe abortion leaves victims facing long-term psychological, social, and health burdens, forcing some to resort to unsafe home abortions. This exposes them to risks including severe bleeding, acute infections that may lead to sepsis and damage to reproductive organs, as well as uterine or vaginal rupture or perforation, which may result in infertility, chronic injury, or even death.
In the Middle East, most countries permit abortion only when the mother’s life is at risk. Out of 18 countries, only four allow it in cases of rape or incest, and Egypt is not among them. Egyptian law broadly criminalizes abortion, penalizing those who perform or assist in it, and also punishes women who carry out abortion themselves. Article 260 of the Egyptian Penal Code stipulates that “whoever intentionally causes the miscarriage of a pregnant woman by beating or other forms of harm shall be punished with aggravated imprisonment.”
Article 261 further stipulates that “whoever intentionally causes the miscarriage of a pregnant woman by administering drugs or using means leading to that result, or by indicating such methods to her, whether with or without her consent, shall be punished by imprisonment.” Meanwhile, Article 262 criminalizes “a woman who consents to taking drugs with knowledge of their effect, or consents to the use of the aforementioned means, or enables others to use such means on her, resulting in miscarriage,” subjecting her to the same penalty. Article 263 imposes temporary hard labor on the person performing the abortion if they are a doctor, surgeon, pharmacist, or midwife.
A research paper titled “A Global Review of Penalties for Abortion-Related Offenses in 182 Countries,” which used data from the Global Abortion Policies Database (GAPD) to analyze criminal penalties imposed on those seeking, providing, or assisting in abortion across 182 countries, found that 134 countries criminalize abortion for those who seek it, while 181 countries criminalize providers, and 159 countries impose penalties on those who assist in abortion. In most countries, the maximum penalty for women seeking abortion ranges between zero and five years of imprisonment, although in some countries penalties may be harsher. In addition to imprisonment, some service providers may face fines or professional bans, measures that add further burdens on those assisting in abortion.
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 73 million induced abortions occur worldwide each year. Induced abortion ends six out of every ten unintended pregnancies (61%) and three out of every ten pregnancies overall (29%). Approximately 45% of all abortions are unsafe, with 97% of these occurring in developing countries.
Unsafe abortion is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality globally, accounting for up to 13% of pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths. Annual deaths resulting from unsafe abortion are estimated to range between 29,000 and 78,000 women worldwide. Most of these deaths occur in developing countries, where abortion laws are restrictive and access to healthcare is limited. The number of unsafe abortions is estimated at around 22 million cases annually, and approximately 7 million women receive hospital treatment each year due to complications.
Absence of a Protocol for Handling Victims
Feminist activist Mayar Makki, founder of the “Bar Aman” initiative, argues that the definition of rape in Egyptian law suffers from structural shortcomings, as it is limited to specific definitions and does not recognize other forms of rape, which she considers a significant legal loophole. The crime of rape is defined specifically as “sexual intercourse with a female without her consent” through full vaginal penetration, according to the 2011 amendments to the Penal Code. Meanwhile, the law classifies all other forms of sexual assault such as anal penetration, the use of hands or objects, forcing the victim into oral sex, sexual assault against males, or inserting a finger or foreign object into the vagina even if it results in the rupture of the hymen as “indecent assault.” Egyptian law also does not recognize marital rape.
Article 267 of the Penal Code stipulates that the perpetrator of rape shall be punished with life imprisonment or the death penalty if the victim is under 18 years old, or if the perpetrator is a relative, guardian, caretaker, or employer, or if there are multiple offenders. In contrast, the crime of indecent assault, as stipulated in Article 268, carries a penalty ranging from three to seven years of aggravated imprisonment, which may be increased to temporary hard labor if the victim is under 16 years old or if aggravating circumstances exist, or to life hard labor if both conditions are met. Article 269 provides for temporary hard labor or imprisonment depending on the victim’s age and circumstances if the assault occurred without direct violence.
The “Bar Aman” initiative explains that survivors of rape bear a compounded burden in the absence of a clear protocol for handling them within official institutions, noting that survivors who file complaints often do not receive emergency contraception, nor the necessary examinations or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, which exacerbates the medical and social harm resulting from the assault.
She tells Zawia3: “Egyptian law categorically criminalizes abortion without any exceptions, unlike other Arab countries and those in the Global South, such as Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, which amended its law in 2024 to include an exception allowing abortion in cases of rape, while Sudanese law has permitted this exception for years. In Egypt, however, punishment extends not only to the woman but also to the doctor or pharmacist who assists in performing the abortion.”
She points to an incident that occurred in Fayoum in 2025, where a girl was raped by a relative and became pregnant as a result. After reporting the crime, the perpetrator was detained, and the doctor who performed the abortion was also arrested, despite the case being one of incest rape. She notes that the law classifies such cases under “incest adultery,” which she says represents another flaw in the legal system.
Makki believes that these incidents reveal how the state deals with issues of rape and abortion, including the most severe cases, explaining that the consequences of the current legal framework place women before two scenarios: either the survivor is forced to continue the pregnancy and bear responsibility for a child in the absence of adequate psychological or medical care to address her trauma, or the child is later abandoned in the street or in front of places of worship, eventually becoming part of the population of street children.
She concludes that the current system places the full responsibility for pregnancy on women, whether it results from consensual relations or sexual violence, while the partner or perpetrator bears no comparable burden, and the state does not intervene to alleviate this burden on survivors or on children born from such cases.
The semi-annual report for 2025 issued by the Observatory of Crimes of Violence Against Women and Girls, affiliated with the Idraak Foundation for Development and Equality, recorded 10 rape cases during the first six months of the year, in addition to two attempted rape cases in which the perpetrators did not succeed. Eight of these incidents were recorded in central governorates Cairo, Giza, and Qalyubia, while two were recorded in Lower Egypt governorates.
The observatory documented two cases of rape involving girls with disabilities, one committed by a cousin and the other by a brother. It also recorded three cases of fathers raping their daughters, including one case in which a father raped two daughters, one of whom was a child. A case was also documented in which a husband raped a mother and her child, ending with the perpetrator’s death. Another case involved the rape of a girl by her stepfather, resulting in pregnancy and the birth of a child, accompanied by the falsification of the newborn’s birth certificate before the mother’s death, as well as photographing the victim, blackmailing her, and forcing her to sign promissory notes to prevent her from reporting the crime. The observatory also recorded the rape of a foreign woman by a student under threat and blackmail, in addition to two attempted rape cases. In one, a girl was rescued after bystanders intervened during an attempted assault inside a car, while in the other, a foreign domestic worker managed to defend herself by stabbing and killing the perpetrator.
The observatory also recorded 62 cases of sexual assault against children during the first half of 2025, ranging from harassment and sexual assault to rape, which in some cases was accompanied by murder. These included 48 cases of sexual assault against girls, including nine rape cases, nine cases involving male children, and five cases involving children with disabilities four males and one female. Twelve cases of assault committed by relatives were also documented, with fathers responsible in three cases, grandfathers in two cases, and uncles, maternal uncles, or brothers in the remaining cases.
Absence of Minimum Protection
The core problem lies not only in the legal texts governing sexual violence crimes, but in the philosophy of legislation itself. Writer and feminist activist Shaimaa Tantawi, one of the founders of the “Barah Aamen” initiative, describes this philosophy as patriarchal, one that does not place the survivor at the center when formulating solutions or developing laws. She notes that even laws with stricter penalties are not based on a vision that positions the female survivor as the center of justice, nor do they take into account the social and economic dimensions associated with the experience of sexual violence, including stigma, discrimination, difficulties in accessing employment opportunities, or exposure to harassment in the workplace.
Regarding rape cases that result in pregnancy, she explains that the situation becomes even harsher, as women have no effective tools to help them survive. She points out that Egyptian legislation does not allow safe abortion and does not even grant women the right to choose whether to keep the child. As a result, women who manage to obtain abortions often resort to unsafe methods, at high financial cost, and under extremely dangerous health conditions.
She tells Zawia3: “There is no clear system in Egypt to protect survivors of sexual violence. There is an absence of effective policies that can be relied upon, and prompt justice is not realized in practice, particularly as litigation procedures are long and psychologically exhausting, in the absence of psychological, social, and economic support, and without any mechanisms to lift stigma from the victim.”
The activist emphasizes that the absence of the concept of compensatory justice constitutes a major gap in dealing with female survivors, noting that legislation does not take into account the multiple contexts women experience after the incident and provides no guarantees for their protection or support. She adds that there are five articles in the Egyptian Penal Code used to mitigate penalties in cases of violence against women, namely Articles 7, 17, 60, 237, and 274.
On the issue of social stigma faced by victims of sexual assault, the feminist writer explains that Egyptian society is shaped by intersecting spatial, cultural, and social dynamics. However, the common denominator, in her view, is the conservative nature of society, which often treats women as a source of shame rather than victims deserving support. As a result, large segments of society tend to deny or conceal such incidents, while others engage in direct and severe stigmatization, blaming the victim or searching for the “ideal victim” who conforms to narrow societal standards.
She points out that if a victim gives birth to a child as a result of rape, the child faces significant stigma and social rejection, noting that society does not accept or recognize them. Many survivor mothers are forced to leave their communities entirely in order to raise their children away from environments of violence and discrimination. She adds that this societal rejection contributes to an increase in the number of children of unknown parentage who are abandoned under the pressure of harsh social conditions faced by the survivor mother. She emphasizes that the absence of legal, social, and economic protection for survivors makes recovery or access to justice extremely difficult, and that the current reality falls far short of providing even the minimum level of protection or support these women deserve.
Under Egyptian law, lineage is established for every newborn to the mother once birth is proven without any conditions or restrictions, while paternity is established through marital presumption, acknowledgment, or evidence. The law does not recognize DNA testing as a means of establishing the lineage of a child born as a result of sexual assault or consensual relations. For a lineage claim to be valid, the existence of a marriage must be proven through an official document, along with witnesses and fulfillment of its legal and religious requirements, whether officially documented, established through a customary document, or based on an unwritten contract, in accordance with Appeal No. 44 of Judicial Year 51 Personal Status.
In Egyptian law, a child’s lineage is not attributed to the father except through a valid marriage, even if DNA testing proves otherwise. Instead, the child is attributed to the mother, in line with the position of Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah, which considers that “the semen of adultery is without legal consequence.” The mother is therefore legally responsible for registering the child born outside the framework of marriage, caring for the child, giving them a name, and bearing responsibility for their upbringing and financial support.
This comes despite Article 4 of the Child Law No. 12 of 1996, as amended by Law No. 126 of 2008, which stipulates that “a child has the right to be attributed to their legitimate parents and to enjoy their care, and has the right to prove their legitimate lineage to them through all means of proof, including legitimate scientific methods.”
The Gap in Legal and Social Protection
In conjunction with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights launched a campaign titled “Not My Fault” on November 19. The organization issued recommendations directed at state institutions, calling for the allocation of dedicated units in public hospitals to care for rape survivors, training healthcare workers to provide safe and respectful abortion care, and adopting explicit legislative provisions allowing abortion in cases of rape and incest within 120 days.
Magda Soliman, head of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Program at the organization, explains that the campaign on safe abortion was inspired by a forthcoming study prepared by human rights lawyer Azza Soliman, titled “Abortion for Rape Survivors Between Legislation and Sharia.” She notes that the campaign falls within the broader strategy of the program, which has for years focused on abortion issues, choosing to prioritize abortion for rape survivors given that it is among the most severely subjected to both legislative and societal injustice. She emphasizes that current Egyptian laws fully criminalize abortion, including in cases resulting from rape, particularly in instances of incest or pregnancy resulting from severe sexual assault.
The program’s director argues that maintaining this legal framework forces survivors into compounded suffering, stemming first from sexual assault, which itself carries lifelong social stigma, and then from being compelled to continue a pregnancy imposed upon them without consent, with all the severe psychological, social, and economic consequences that entails. She calls for the law to include at least a clear exception permitting abortion in cases of rape, as a minimum standard of justice for survivors.
She tells Zawia3: “The problem is complex, involving an overlap between the religious and legal dimensions. Within Islamic jurisprudence, there are multiple schools of thought and diverse interpretations, some of which permit abortion at certain stages of pregnancy. In contrast, Egyptian legislation adopts a far more restrictive position, prohibiting abortion absolutely except in very limited circumstances related to imminent danger to the mother’s life or severe fetal deformities.” She adds that this discrepancy reflects a clear conflation between jurisprudence and legislation, as well as the absence of a legislative vision responsive to the realities of society.
She further emphasizes that survivors of rape are subjected to an especially harsh form of stigma and accusation. In many cases, they are unable to disclose the assault or report it to the police, fearing harsh treatment and suspicion, as they are often treated as perpetrators rather than victims. She stresses the need to build trust between citizens and law enforcement, and to establish clear mechanisms for receiving reports of sexual violence and ensuring humane treatment of victims.
She adds: “Survivors of sexual assault live with long-term psychological consequences, while society remains harsh in its judgments, as initial sympathy often turns into direct blame and reinforces the notion that the victim is responsible for what happened to her.”
She points to the occurrence of incest rape within Egyptian society, particularly affecting underage girls, who endure compounded suffering that can last for years. She stresses that the absence of legislation regulating abortion in cases of rape, combined with social stigma and harsh treatment within the justice system, makes the journey of survivors extremely difficult and deepens the gap in legal and social protection that should guarantee their fundamental right to bodily integrity and justice.
On the jurisprudential level, Egypt has witnessed, in recent years, religious rulings permitting abortion in cases of rape, based on principles of the objectives of Sharia and the preservation of life and dignity. Among those who have issued such opinions are former Grand Mufti Nasr Farid Wasel and Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawy, along with a number of members of Islamic jurisprudential councils. This aligns with international frameworks that have recognized reproductive health, including safe abortion, as part of human rights since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, which affirmed that criminalizing abortion does not prevent it but rather pushes women toward unsafe methods. The Rome Statute also classifies rape and forced pregnancy as crimes against humanity.
A Custodial Penalty
For his part, Abdel Fattah Yehia, head of the legal unit at the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, affirms that the Penal Code issued in 1950 fully criminalizes abortion, whether carried out using medication, through physical harm, or by any other means, without any clear exception for cases of rape or incest.
He considers that this situation directly contradicts international conventions related to the right to bodily integrity, and is even more at odds with the circumstances of rape survivors, who find themselves threatened with custodial penalties if they seek to terminate a pregnancy, despite being victims of a criminal act. He explains that this creates a major social crisis, as the mother may be an underage girl forced to give birth to a child, making both of them victims at the same time.
The head of the legal unit notes that neighboring countries do not adopt such strict approaches, as legislation in countries such as Sudan and Tunisia allows abortion in cases of rape and incest. Some laws also permit abortion if the fetus suffers from severe deformities or if the pregnancy threatens the physical safety of the mother or the child. He believes that such legislation grants women the right to self-determination, while Egyptian law deprives women of this right except in a single case, namely the presence of imminent danger to the mother’s life.
He tells Zawia3: “Egyptian laws related to sexual assault suffer from severe shortcomings. They do not provide adequate protection for survivors, do not guarantee the confidentiality of complainants’ data or their protection, and do not offer shelters or psychological, social, or economic support. There is an urgent need for a unified law to combat violence against women that addresses these crimes with tools suited to current realities.”
Regarding the definitions of rape and indecent assault, Yehia explains that the Penal Code requires penetration by the male sexual organ for the crime of rape to be established, and that in the absence of such penetration, the act may be classified as “indecent assault.” He considers these definitions outdated, rooted in texts dating back to 1950, and no longer suited to the nature of modern crimes, requiring a comprehensive review to ensure effective protection for survivors.
On the issue of establishing lineage for children born as a result of rape, Yehia explains that Egyptian legislation relies on jurisprudential rulings that consider “the semen of adultery without legal consequence,” thereby denying the lineage of a child born from forced sexual relations. He notes that DNA testing is used in criminal courts to prove the commission of the crime, but is not recognized as evidence to establish the child’s lineage to the rapist. As a result, the mother bears a double burden: she is both a survivor of severe sexual violence and the mother of a child whose legal lineage to the father is not recognized, depriving the child of full rights, despite the constitution guaranteeing every child the right to a legal identity and to establish lineage.
He further explains that the Civil Status Law grants the child in such cases the mother’s name and a fictitious name for the father if the crime is not incest. In cases of incest, however, the child is registered under neither the mother’s nor the father’s name, but is instead given an entirely different name. He considers this a serious legislative loophole that leads to significant contradictions between family law and criminal law, reflecting the inability of the legal system to unify mechanisms for establishing lineage based on modern scientific methods.
He warns that this legislative inconsistency opens the door to the mixing of lineages, as some families resort to registering the child under the name of a grandfather or maternal uncle to avoid social stigma, effectively making the grandfather or uncle the legal father. The child is officially recorded as the sibling of their mother or the child of her sibling, a situation he views as evidence of the absence of a clear legislative vision and one that creates wide space for legal and social manipulation.
In light of the current realities, survivors of rape appear trapped between the violence of the crime on one hand and the violence of law and society on the other. Current legislation, which closes the door to safe abortion and excludes the health and psychological needs of victims, contributes to reproducing pain rather than alleviating it, turning the path to justice into a new cycle of violations. While the state intensifies penalties against perpetrators and declares its commitment to international conventions, women and girls remain without real protection and without a comprehensive system that ensures care, support, and survival.
As data indicates rising rates of sexual assault and increasingly diverse patterns of violence, it becomes clear that the absence of clear protocols for dealing with victims, the lack of compensatory justice, and the persistence of patriarchal frameworks in legislation all contribute to making the survivor’s journey one paved with fear, stigma, and obstacles.
In the absence of a legal framework that aligns with victims, and with the continuation of policies that criminalize abortion without exceptions, the victim is punished twice: once when her will is violated, and again when she is forced to bear the consequences of a crime she did not commit.
Meanwhile, children born as a result of sexual violence are left to face lives that begin with stigma and deprivation of legal identity. Here emerges the urgent need for fundamental legislative change that restores the meaning of justice and guarantees victims their rights over their bodies and their dignity.
