The Egyptian government conducts mass arrest campaigns of children whose "crime" is that they are in need of protection, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Children in police custody face beatings, sexual abuse and extortion by police and adult criminal suspects, and police routinely deny them access to food, bedding and medical care.

More than 25 percent of all children arrested in Egypt in 2001 were children considered "vulnerable to delinquency" under Egypt's Child Law. They have committed no crime, and are typically homeless, beggars or truants from school. Police often use the charge as a pretext to clear the streets of children, extort money and information, force children to move on to other neighborhoods, and bring children in for questioning in the absence of evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

The 87-page report, "Charged with Being Children: Egyptian Police
Abuse of Children in Need of Protection," draws on interviews with dozens of Egyptian children living or working on the street, as well as police, prosecutors, social workers and judges in the juvenile justice system.

Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to immediately end its policies of arresting children it deems "vulnerable to delinquency" and of routinely detaining children in police lockups. Egypt should also designate a full time position in the Ministry of Justice to oversee investigations of torture and ill-treatment of children in police custody.

Human Rights Watch found that police in Cairo routinely beat children with batons, whips, rubber hoses and belts, and transport them in dangerous vehicles, often with adult detainees. Children held in overcrowded and dirty adult police lockups must bribe guards or beg from criminal detainees to obtain food and bedding. Children who are transferred to the overcrowded al Azbekiya juvenile police lockup receive only marginally better treatment, and may be detained with children significantly older or who have committed serious crimes.