Walaa Mostafa, a 35-year-old Egyptian from the popular Imbaba district in western Cairo, took out a small loan of 13,000 pounds (about 650 euros) in 2017 shortly before her wedding. As usual, the future spouses shared the task of buying furniture and household appliances. And since Mostafa still had no savings, he asked a neighborhood merchant for the money, which is customary in Egypt, a largely bankless country.
During the first year, the Egyptian diligently paid each monthly payment until she repaid just over half, thanks to what she was able to save from her salary. Then the problems started. “I had my first child and then I got really sick and had to go to the hospital and stay there for a month. So I didn’t pay [las siguientes] fees,” he says.
He still had the equivalent of almost 300 euros left, but the businessman with whom he had incurred the debt reported Mostafa to the police. The woman was then forced to sell some of her furniture and appliances to pay a lawyer to defend her. But it did not prevent a first instance court from passing a very harsh sentence on her: three years in prison.
Although it may seem so at first glance, Mostafa was far from the only Egyptian to find herself in such a nightmare. Known as al-Gharemat, the country sees thousands of cases each year of bankrupt women receiving very severe prison sentences and ending up behind bars (or on the run) for not being able to pay small debts.
“Most prisoners are prisoners of poverty,” says Nawal Mostafa, founder of the Children of Women Prisoners Association (CFPA) and a prominent activist on the cause. “They can’t afford to buy an oven, fridge or television for their tiny homes. And since they are poor, they buy them in installments. Sometimes they also ask for credit when a family member falls ill,” he dismisses.
Nawal Mostafa, with children of detained women, Horizon FCB Dubai
Now the CFPA, one of the most active organizations dedicated to supporting these women in Egypt, has teamed up with a UAE advertising agency, Horizon FCB Dubai, to raise funds and raise awareness of this issue in a special way make : through non-fungible tokens or NFTs, unique digital images that, although infinitely reproducible, are individually owned.
Inspired by individual stories like Walaa Mostafa’s, the Emirati collective asks artists from around the world to create NFTs, which are then put up for sale at a price equal to the amount it will cost to pay off the woman’s debt in ask questions and acquit them. . In the case of Mostafa, one of the first beneficiaries of the project in May – coinciding with the end of the month of Ramadan – the NFT was sold for around €300, which the CFPA then paid to its lender.
“We are using NFTs to reinvent them,” says Reham Mufleh, CEO of Horizon FCB Dubai and one of the promoters of the Break Your Chains with Blockchain project. “We wanted to capitalize on their popularity and use them as a vehicle to raise awareness of this issue,” he explains.
A legacy of the French colonial legal system that inspired Egypt when it first drafted its laws, the country’s penal code still includes an article on breach of trust, which judges non-payment of a debt. It provides for harsh prison sentences of up to three years and a fine. For defaulting debtors, the ultimate penalty can be even higher, as penalties can accumulate depending on the number of unpaid checks and receipts and the total number of creditors involved, according to a thesis by Nivert Elsherif published by the American University of Cairo in 2018.
Walaa Mostafa’s NFT.Horizon FCB Dubai
Many of those in this situation are mothers from working-class families who need the money to help their children get married, to deal with emergencies such as medical or school expenses, or women who, according to the study above and the testimonials consulted, had simply co-signed loans . And while the number of insolvent people imprisoned or prosecuted by the authorities is not known, it is believed that there are at least thousands a year, a very high proportion of Egypt’s prison population.
Nawal Mostafa notes that in many cases, lenders also take advantage of the debtors’ precarious situation and their ignorance of the law to defraud them. “They are forced to take money from someone and that person makes them sign receipts for a very large sum, not the real one they take. Because of illiteracy and ignorance of the law, they fall into this very serious trap,” he stresses. Mostafa adds that many of these women face serious difficulties in reintegrating into their communities after their time in prison due to the strong stigma attached to prison.
One such case is that of Hoda Ali, a 42-year-old Egyptian woman who was born in Sohag governorate in the south of the country. In 2019, Ali took out a loan so he could buy his son a tuk-tuk, a motorized tricycle popular as a taxi in Cairo’s working-class neighborhoods. Before long, a gang beat the boy up, severely injuring his face and stealing his vehicle. Unable to continue working, Ali was unable to pay back the money. “I was forced to pay off the loan with another loan,” she explains. I entered a circle [vicioso]“.
Hoda Ali’s NFT.Horizon FCB Dubai
In total, Ali accumulated seven convictions with prison terms ranging from six months to two years. She was arrested once and spent two nights at the police station before being jailed, but her neighbors were able to find enough money to pay off her next loan and free her. Ali chose to run away from home and flee again and again to avoid being arrested again. “It wasn’t my fault: I did it to be able to live and to have money for my family. That was bad luck,” he recalls.
Thanks to the campaign with the NFTs, the CFPA raised about 350 euros to pay off the seventh and last of its loans, the most important one, breaking the cycle. Although she succeeded, Ali says she now lives alone because none of her three children want to see her and her husband fled when she started having problems. “Now at least I have no more convictions. All are gone. I still have a few installments to pay but I’m trying,” he said.
The project, co-sponsored by CFPA and Horizon FCB, was launched on March 21, coinciding with Mother’s Day in Egypt, and 25 NFTs have been sold to date. Mufleh from the Emirati Group explains that it is a slow process as each case is carefully selected by the Egyptian association after reviewing it. Then they get in touch with an international artist to explain the case in detail so that he can design a new NFT based on his story.
The aim of the initiative is to create awareness in a striking way
The project already had collaborations from artists from the United States, Brazil, Egypt and Portugal, and Mufleh assures others are awaiting the next cases. Both she and Mostafa point out that the goal of the initiative is not so much to liberate large numbers of women, as there are already other organizations that are also raising funds for this, but to try to raise awareness in a bold way to sharpen. “We believe that attracting large-scale attention could help speed up the process of finding an alternative punishment for neglect,” says advertising agency director Reham Mufleh.
In 2014 the Mostafa association started its own program aimed at teaching women who are still in prison and those who have just been released from prison a trade so that they have a minimum income from which to start themselves to feed yourself. They also offer them psychological support and legal training. And along with prominent public figures and members of Egypt’s parliament, the organization is dedicated to lobbying for legislative changes, which Mostafa sees as the ultimate goal of its mission. “This is an ongoing problem and that’s why we’re trying to get to the root of it. Not just freeing women from prison because tomorrow others will enter.” Sentence.
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