Egypt

(En) In the last two decades, Egypt has become host to many different kinds of migrants from both North and South. In the 1990s, Egypt witnessed a massive inflow from Africa, while the Iraqi migration began after the American-led invasion in 2003. This paper looks at the situation of Iraqi refugees in Egypt, and tackles; first, the causes of Iraqi migration in Egypt and trends within that migration; second, the living conditions of Iraqis in Egypt including the question of access to services and rights; third, the problems that Iraqis experience there; fourth, the way that civil society and international assistance deal with Iraqi refugees. Finally, the paper proposes some recommendations that would improve the situation of Iraqi refugees. *** (Fr) Au cours des deux dernières décennies, l’Egypte a accueilli des flux migratoires divers provenant du nord et du sud. L’on note particulièrement les flux migratoires provenant de l’Afrique pendant les années 90 suivis par l’arrivée des réfugies iraquiens suite à l’invasion américaine de l’Irak en 2003. Ce papier met en exergue la situation des réfugies iraquiens en Egypte et analyse les dynamiques, causes et tendances de cette immigration. Il met également en lumière les conditions de vie des réfugies iraquiens et les problèmes que ces derniers affrontent en Egypte. En outre, le papier analyse comment la société civile égyptienne et les organisations internationales traitent de la question des réfugies iraquiens en Egypte. Finalement, quelques recommandations fondamentales qui permettraient d’assurer une meilleure gestion du problème et d’améliorer la situation des réfugiés iraquiens sont proposées.

IOM offers AVRR services to migrants who are unwilling or unable to remain in Egypt and wish to return to their country of origin. The AVRR programme in Egypt started in 2011 and since then stranded and vulnerable migrants mainly from Africa and Asia were assisted. Each of these migrants have a distinct migratory story of how they got to Egypt and why they wanted to return. Some of these migrants survived exceptional circumstance, such as trafficking, abuse, as well as other numerous forms of exploitation. Returning migrants receive reintegration grants in their country of origin and the vast majority use in starting-up their own business, specifically in the agriculture sector.

(En) In the last two decades, Egypt has become host to many different kinds of migrants from both North and South. In the 1990s, Egypt witnessed a massive inflow from Africa, while the Iraqi migration began after the American-led invasion in 2003. This paper looks at the situation of Iraqi refugees in Egypt, and tackles; first, the causes of Iraqi migration in Egypt and trends within that migration; second, the living conditions of Iraqis in Egypt including the question of access to services and rights; third, the problems that Iraqis experience there; fourth, the way that civil society and international assistance deal with Iraqi refugees. Finally, the paper proposes some recommendations that would improve the situation of Iraqi refugees. **** Résumé (Fr) Au cours des deux dernières décennies, l’Egypte a accueilli des flux migratoires divers provenant du nord et du sud. L’on note particulièrement les flux migratoires provenant de l’Afrique pendant les années 90 suivis par l’arrivée des réfugies iraquiens suite à l’invasion américaine de l’Irak en 2003. Ce papier met en exergue la situation des réfugies iraquiens en Egypte et analyse les dynamiques, causes et tendances de cette immigration. Il met également en lumière les conditions de vie des réfugies iraquiens et les problèmes que ces derniers affrontent en Egypte. En outre, le papier analyse comment la société civile égyptienne et les organisations internationales traitent de la question des réfugies iraquiens en Egypte. Finalement, quelques recommandations fondamentales qui permettraient d’assurer une meilleure gestion du problème et d’améliorer la situation des réfugiés iraquiens sont proposées.

This paper shows that the different migration policies reflect the national concern with alleviating the burden the increasing population imposes on national resources. On the one hand, Egyptian laws favor temporary labor migration as a labor distress mechanism and seek to create new opportunities via bilateral agreements. On the other hand, Egyptian laws reject the integration of non-nationals in Egypt and impose strict conditions regarding work and residency permits and naturalization. The paper assesses Egyptian migration laws dealing with migration, both into or out of Egypt, against the criteria of circular migration and shows that the existing framework currently enforces a quasi-circular migration at best. In the examination of Egypt as a sending country, the paper shows that migration law does in fact provide a legal framework that meets most of the criteria favoring circular migration. Nevertheless, legislation suffers from shortcomings within the context of management, in terms of readmitting returned migrants or creating incentives for their return. The paper also points to discriminatory provisions regarding fundamental rights among the different groups of foreigners in Egypt, where the most disadvantaged are refugees and asylum seekers. The paper highlights the need for policies that improve the economic and social conditions of migrants, and to include refugees in circular migration programs as well as reduce the recourse to illegal migration among refugees and Egyptians alike.

Hellenistic Egyptian history has been described as a 'tale of two cultures'. This duality is manifest in the differences between the textile cultures of the two ethic groups that came into contact during the time of the Ptolemies. The fundamental differences concern: a/ the traditional fibre used (linen in Egypt–wool in Greece); b/ the colour preference for garments (white for Egypt-a variety of vivid colours in Greece; c/ the loom used for weaving (horizontal in Egypt-vertical in Greece). When Alexander the Great first came to Egypt, he decided to leave his mark on the territory, and founded the first city that would bear his name: Alexandria. Descriptions of the city detailed by such later ancient authors as Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Plutarch report that the city had the shape of a chlamys, the typical woollen cloak of Alexander and his cavalry. The first chlamys-shaped wold map was also produced in Alexandria by Eratosthenes, head librarian at the famous library under the third Ptolemy. The founding of Alexandria inaugurates systematic cross-cultural interactions between Greeks and Egyptians, two ethnic groups with distinct languages, cultures, ways of life, and, naturally, dress. The garment chlamys becomes the garment of Ptolemaic royals, while it continues to be the garment of the army. The make-up of this largely mercenary army, though, had since become ethnically diverse, and included local Egyptians. A host of sources (e.g. papyri, iconography on temples, tombs, ostraca, coinage) testify to the fact that the chlamys becomes widespread in both Alexandria and the rest of the Egyptian territory. This project investigates the garment chlamys both as a material object and as a cultural symbol, thus capturing multiple glimpses of everyday life in Hellenistic Egypt, while providing a reassessment of the ongoing discource on dress, ethnicity and identity in cross-cultural cont

Egypt’s capital Cairo hosts one of the five largest urban refugee populations in the world. For this reason, our paper concentrates on the legal aspect of irregular migration, discussing the characteristics of these migrants as asylum seekers and refugees while also examining transit migrants. First, the paper tackles associated concepts and data issues, with reference to the existing literature and international standards. In the second part, an overview of the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) situation is given as a prelude to the Egyptian experience. In the third part, the socio-economic profile of refugees and asylum seekers from Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Iraq is given with reference to their legal status, their rights and their living conditions measured in terms of income and sources of income, access to education, employment, health care and social services. The paper concludes by looking at the socio-economic situation in Egypt and policy recommendations concerning government practices, procedures, mechanisms, policies and laws. Gaps in research have also been highlighted so that these issues can be better addressed in the future.

Egypt during the Late Antique and Early Islamic periods (broadly the 5th to 8th centuries CE) was a multicultural and multilingual country. Greeks, Egyptians, and, later, Arabs populated the land, speaking Greek, Coptic (the last form of the indigenous Egyptian language), and Arabic. Before the Arabic conquest of 640-642 CE, Christianity was the predominant religion of Egypt, and continued to be so for a while after the conquest, until the 8th and 9th centuries when conversion became more widespread. Centuries of co-existence brought Greeks into contact with Egyptians and vice versa, yet the picture of Late Antique Egypt is a largely Greek one: Greek was the official language of the administration and the majority of Greek non-literary textual finds from this period are also in Greek. As a result, studies on life and especially the economy have focussed on the evidence written in Greek. This study does not seek to study the complex social, cultural, linguistic, and religious interactions at play in the country during this time. Instead, it will provide a new perspective on the economic landscape of Egypt. Monasteries had been a significant part of the Egyptian landscape since the beginnings of Christianity in the country. Life inside these institutions was recorded primarily in Coptic. Despite the importance of monasticism and the body of available Coptic texts, their position within the Egyptian administrative and economic framework has largely been ignored, with attention placed instead on the contemporary large Greek estates. The aim of this project is to study the economic position of Coptic monasteries during this timeframe on the basis of the neglected evidence from two sources: the monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga and the corpus of non-literary Coptic texts in the collection of the University of Copenhagen.

This paper analyzed the highly skilled migration patterns in Egypt and its impact on Egyptian development. The main question herein, is whether highly skilled migration patterns in the case of Egypt induces development or underdevelopment. The study found out that highly skilled migration patterns from Egypt, to the OECD and the Gulf, contribute positively to the development process of Egypt. Highly skilled migrants, find more employment opportunities outside of Egypt, whose labor market is incapable of absorbing high numbers of highly skilled individuals. Moreover, highly skilled migrants are capable of sending a large amount of remittances, amounting to 4 percent of the Egyptian GDP. Last but not least, highly skilled migration is an important contributor to "brain circulation", which increases the entrepreneurial skills of a large number of Egyptian migrants. Concerning highly-skilled immigrants in Egypt, their presence is of no threat to the Egyptian development process; on the contrary, their presence produces more small-scale businesses, which in turn creates employment in the Egyptian labour market. The Egyptian government's policies encourage migration of the highly skilled, through multilateral and bilateral agreements, and through the creation of training centers for prospected highly skilled migrants. However, these policies are not sufficient, and should be accompanied with more bilateral agreements both in the OECD and Gulf Countries, which precipitate more skill match-making between the supply side of the Egyptian highly-skilled migrants and the demand side of the OECD and Gulf Countries. Résumé Cet article analyse la relation entre migration hautement qualifiée et développement dans le cas de l’Egypte. Il a pour objectif de déterminer si la migration des travailleurs hautement qualifiés a un impact positif sur le développement du pays, ou si au contraire elle a pour conséquence de renforcer le sous-développement. Cette étude conclut que l’émigration des travailleurs hautement qualifiés vers les pays de l’OCDE et du Golfe contribue positivement au processus de développement de l’Egypte. En effet, les travailleurs hautement qualifiés trouvent davantage d’opportunités professionnelles hors d’Egypte, dont le marché du travail n’est pas en mesure d’offrir à chacun un poste à la hauteur de ses compétences. De plus, les expatriés hautement qualifiés effectuent des transferts de fonds importants qui représentent au total jusqu’à 4% du PIB Egyptien. Enfin, la migration hautement qualifiée alimente la « circulation des cerveaux », qui accroit substantiellement les compétences entrepreneuriales de nombreux migrants Egyptiens. En ce qui concerne les immigrés hautement qualifiés résidant en Egypte, l’étude conclut qu’ils ne constituent pas une menace au processus de développement de l’économie nationale. Au contraire, leur présence renforce le tissu de petites entreprises, ce qui en retour participe à la création d’emplois sur le marché du travail égyptien. Les politiques mises en place par le gouvernement égyptien visent à encourager la migration des travailleurs hautement qualifiés, par le biais d’accords multilatéraux et bilatéraux, et à travers la création de centres de formation destinés aux migrants potentiels. Toutefois, ces initiatives demeurent insuffisantes. Elles devraient s’accompagner davantage d’accords bilatéraux avec les pays de l’OCDE et du Golfe, ayant pour objectif d’améliorer la correspondance des compétences entre l’offre des travailleurs égyptiens et la demande des pays d’accueil.

This paper highlights the recent patterns of outward migration from Egypt. After a brief historical overview, the main characteristics of Egyptians residing abroad are presented. Part of the analysis is also dedicated to the effects of emigration on the Egyptian labor market as well as on the causes prompting outward migration from the country. As to immigration patterns, the conditions of refugees and asylum seekers living in Egypt are analyzed in detail. The paper concludes with a time analysis of the social and economic impact of remittances in Egypt. Cet article se propose d’apporter un éclairage nouveau et actualisé sur les caractéristiques se rapportant au phénomène de l’émigration en partance de l’Egypte. Partant d’une brève historique, l’analyse s’attache à retranscrire les caractéristiques principales des émigrés égyptiens. L’intérêt de cette étude tient, en outre, à déterminer, et d’une part, l’impact de ce phénomène sur le marché du travail égyptien et, de l’autre, les causes motivant les migrations enregistrées en partance de l’Egypte. S’agissant des caractéristiques liées au phénomène de l’immigration, l’analyse prête une attention particulière à la condition des réfugiés et des demandeurs d’asile résidant en Egypte. L’article se penche, en dernier lieu, à l’appui d’une analyse temporelle, sur l’impact socio-économique des transferts de fonds réalisés vers l’Egypte.

The aim of this project is to write a cultural history of 4000 years, localized on Elephantine Island in Egypt. Elephantine was a militarily and strategically very important island in the river Nile on the southern border of Egypt. No other settlement in Egypt is so well attested over such a long period of time. Its inhabitants form a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi-religious community that left us vast amounts of written sources detailing their everyday lives from the Old Kingdom to beyond the Arab Conquest. Today, several thousand papyri and other manuscripts from Elephantine are scattered in more than 60 institutions across Europe and beyond. Their texts are written in different languages and scripts, including Hieroglyphs, Hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Coptic and Arabic. 80% of these manuscripts are still unpublished and unstudied. The great challenge of this project is to use this material to answer three key questions covering: 1) Multiculturalism and identity between assimilation and segregation, 2) Organization of family and society, 3) Development of religions (Polytheism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Thus, access needs to be gained to these texts, making them publicly available in an open access online database. Links are to be identified between papyrus fragments from different collections and an international ‘papyrus puzzle’ will be undertaken, incorporating cutting-edge methods from digital humanities, physics and mathematics (e.g. for the virtual unfolding of papyri). Using this database with medical, religious, legal, administrative, even literary texts, the micro-history of the everyday life of the local and global (i.e. ‘glocal’) community of Elephantine will be studied within its socio-cultural setting in Egypt and beyond. It will be linked back to macro-historical questions and benefit from newly-introduced methodologies of global history: Elephantine can thus be used as a case study and a model for the past, present and future.

This report documents the experiences of Sudanese refugees in Egypt who—in the face of sudden war in Sudan—abruptly departed their homes, leaving behind all their earthly possessions and the very fabric of their lives. We recount the trials they faced upon leaving home, and the new set of challenges they are forced to navigate in pursuit of a new life in Egypt—from housing and employment to overcoming perceptions in a host community already reeling from economic instability. Beyond narrating individual stories, the report spotlights the magnitude of the Sudanese crisis, urging the international community to pay close attention to the unfolding tragedy and galvanize an urgent call to action.

Egypt is a hosting and sending state for migrant women. This paper will examine the laws governing the personal status of women in Egypt, and explore the problems that Egyptian migrant women face as a result of these laws. It will also examine Egyptian nationality law and how it creates difficulties in the integration of immigrant women into Egyptian society. / L’Egypte est un pays d’accueil et un pays d’envoi de femmes migrantes. Ce papier examine les lois régissant le statut personnel des femmes en Egypte et étudie les problèmes auxquels sont confrontées les femmes migrantes égyptiennes du fait de ces lois. Il examine également la loi sur la nationalité égyptienne et les difficultés qu’elle crée pour l’intégration des femmes immigrées dans la société égyptienne.

Abstract This paper examines the legal situation of Iraqi refugees and asylum-seekers in Egypt. Despite Egypt’s obligation to integrate refugees, several obstacles make such a process exceptionally difficult as far as Iraqi refugees are concerned. As the paper will reveal, while some of these obstacles are particular to the Egyptian legal system, others impediments concern the Iraqi community alone. The paper will also demonstrate that although Iraqis initially benefitted from Egypt’s hospitality, stability, and lenient investment laws, the massive flows of refugees from Iraq, coupled with the scape-goating of Iraqis for rising real estate prices in parts of Cairo, led the Egyptian government to adopt tougher measures regarding the entry and residence of Iraqis. For example, it is reported that, as of 2006, the government stopped issuing visas for Iraqi nationals. At times, there were reports that the government would no longer renew residence permits for Iraqis, including the ones acquired for investment purpose. This drove thousands of Iraqi nationals to seek asylum through UNHCR. The paper will also reveal difficulties that are more pronounced in the case of Iraqis than in the case of other refugees communities, such as a de facto ban on the right to primary education in Stateowned schools which, though in line with the government’s reservations to the 1951 Refugee Convention, constitutes a violation of Egypt’s obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Other forms of discrimination against Iraqis include restrictions on the establishment of Iraqi community-based organizations due mainly to fear of religious tensions and rumours of militia threats not to mention restrictions on obtaining work permits. Résumé Ce papier rend compte de la situation juridique des réfugiés et demandeurs d’asile irakiens en Egypte. En dépit de l’obligation qui pèse sur l’Egypte d’assurer l’intégration de ses réfugiés, divers obstacles rendent ce processus d’intégration pratiquement impossible pour les réfugiés irakiens. Ces obstacles tiennent pour partie au système juridique égyptien en tant que tel alors que d’autres relèvent spécifiquement de la communauté irakienne. Ce papier montrera également comment d’une situation initialement favorable pour les Irakiens en termes d’hospitalité, de stabilité du séjour et d’ouverture à leurs investissements, le gouvernement est passé à une politique plus restrictive en termes d’entrée et de séjour. Ceci essentiellement en raison de l’accroissement des réfugiés en provenance d’Irak et de leur stigmatisation en tant que responsables de la flambée des prix de l’immobilier dans certains quartiers du Caire. Ainsi, à partir de 2006, le gouvernement a-t-il cessé de délivré des visas aux citoyens irakiens. A la même époque, il déclara que leur permis de séjour ne seraient plus renouvelés, en ce compris ceux obtenus à des fins économiques. Cela amena des milliers d’Irakiens à chercher l’asile auprès du HCR. Les Irakiens font face à des difficultés spécifiques, c'est-à-dire, non rencontrées par d’autres communautés de réfugiés en Egypte. Elles sont d’ordre divers. Telle que l’interdiction de facto d’accéder à l’éducation primaire dans les écoles publiques. L’Egypte a émis une réserve sur ce point à l’occasion de sa ratification de la Convention des N-U de 1951 mais cette réserve est en violation de la Convention des N-U relative à la sauvegarde des droits de l’enfant. Les Irakiens font l’objet d’autres formes de discrimination, notamment en termes de limitation de leur liberté d’association, les groupement irakiens à caractère communautaire sont empêchés par les autorités par crainte des tensions religieuses et de formation de milices qu’ils pourraient favoriser. Les réfugiés irakiens sont également discriminés en matière d’accès au travail.

Egypt hosts thousands of foreign nationals, a small percentage of whom are considered regular migrants or recognized refugees. This paper will outline the different legal tools that bind non-Egyptians and explore the problems that irregular migrant, including failed asylum-seekers face. It will also explain how the Minister of the Interior has absolute powers with regards to naturalization and deportations and propose an alternative mechanism that is fairer and more compliant with modern human rights standards.