International Appeal
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I am writing to you out of deep concern for the safety and well-being of the indigenous Coptic women and minor girls in Egypt who have been increasingly targeted for trafficking, forced conversion to Islam, sexual abuse, and forced marriage. The plight of missing Coptic women and girls, and their families, is overlooked due to a lack of sensitivity to their religious identity.

Many hundreds of Coptic women have been forcibly disappeared in the last decades in Egypt, but government officials and legislators in the West have been hesitant to speak out as the Egyptian government depicts these disappearances as “love stories” in which Coptic women elope with Muslim men. The number of disappearances and subsequent decisions to sever all ties with their families is too substantial to ignore or to assume the majority of disappearances are voluntary.

The evidence points to the exact opposite conclusion. Even more so when we take into account that families trying to report these disappearances are often turned away and forced to deal with (implicit or explicit) threats by the police.

This serious human rights abuse has been well-documented with victims, family members, and former traffickers confirming that the networks are coordinated by Imams of local mosques, often with the complicity of Egyptian state security and/or  government officials. 

Testimony indicates that the perpetrators are paid for every Coptic female converted to Islam, and that is the primary motivation of kidnapping or luring them.
This targeting and forced conversion of Coptic women is an intentional form of humiliation and subjugation, lowering the number of Christians in Egypt and ensuring that their children are raised Muslims. Al -Azhar also assists by quickly issuing conversion certificates despite clear evidence that these conversions are made under duress. 

At times, the Egyptian National Security have “found” abducted women, but only after enough negative media attention and international pressure were applied. The circumstances of the women being “found” and returned to their families are always extremely murky, and nearly all families report being threatened by National Security personnel to never speak about the crimes committed against their daughters. Not a single individual involved in the trafficking has been held to account by the Egyptian police or the judiciary.

The position of Coptic women and girls within Egyptian society remains fragile as they are increasingly targeted based on their gender and ethno-religious identity; which make them extremely vulnerable for abduction, grooming, and abuse. 

We, the undersigned, respectfully urge you to raise the epidemic of trafficking of Coptic women and girls with the Egyptian government in order to end impunity and bring justice to the victims through the following steps:

• To ensure that any perpetrator, including government officials, involved in facilitating, colluding, or participating in the abduction, luring, forced disappearance, or forced religious conversion of a Coptic woman or girl is brought to justice and faces the full extent of the law.
• To provide resources for returned women and their families to receive medical, psychiatric, and therapeutic care, and to ensure they and their families are safe from harassment and repeated abductions
• To Appoint Coptic women across all national strategies and bodies that defend women’s rights, such as the Egyptian National Council for Women, the National Committee for Women, and the Egyptian National Observatory for Women (beyond any current ‘symbolic’ membership). 

Thanks for your consideration and action on this important issue. 

Sincerely,

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Petition will be delivered to:
President Donald Trump – United States
Prime Minister Mark Carney – Canada
President Emmanuel Macron – France
Prime Minister Keir Starmer – United Kingdom
President António Costa  - European Council
President Ursula von der Leyen - European Commission
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese - Australia