Egypt strives to eradicate human trafficking through a victim center approach. The government believes that protecting and empowering the victims might be the best solution to break the vicious circle of trafficking. Since 2018, Egypt worked on enhancing the national protection system for the victims of human trafficking “VOTs”.

A cooperation protocol for establishing a new dedicated shelter for VOTs was signed by the Ministry of Social Solidarity “MOSS” and National Council for Childhood and Motherhood “NCCM” and Egyptian Red Crescent “ERC”. Every party of the protocol has a certain role, MOSS provided the shelter’s premises and its running cost, ERC hired the shelter’s staff and NCCM provided the technical expertise. 

The National Coordinating Committee for Combating and Preventing Illegal Migration and trafficking in Persons “NCCPIM&TIP” and the three abovementioned entities selected carefully a well experienced staff that are used to work with victims in general. The shelter is staffed by female psychologists, social workers, and medical staff.

After this stage, NCCPIM&TIP in cooperation with IOM implemented SPHERE project, one of its objectives is to enhance the VOTs’ shelter capacities. This project was funded by the Danish government, and it included the renovation and refurbishment of the shelter as well as building the capacities its staff.

The staff training program focused on the international best practices in the area of managing the VOTs’ shelter, victims’ personal data security, national and international legal frame work and ways of psychological and social support for the victims. It is worth mentioning that the shelter was built in line with the international standards, and is equipped to receive special needs victims.

MOSS in cooperation with NCCPIM&TIP and its relevant national members prepared the internal rules of regulation for managing the shelter. This rules stated all the related guidelines that should be followed in managing the shelter.

The shelter received until now five victims, one of them was identified by authorities of UAE in coordination with Egypt’s diplomatic mission in Abu Dhabi and through the Egyptian national referral mechanism the victim was returned to Egypt and sent to the VOTs shelter.

Egypt currently is working on establishing two new shelters for VOTs, one will be allocated in Alexandria and the second in upper Egypt to cover the different geographic areas of the country.