Rights groups blame Interior Ministry for Giza teenager’s killing by her brother

Nine feminist rights organisations have accused Egypt’s Interior Ministry of helping bring about the killing of a 16-year-old girl by her own brother in Giza, saying police handed her back to her family with no real protection in place after she had been reported missing.

Aya Radwan was killed in the Al-Saff city of Giza governorate shortly after the public prosecution and security services returned her to her family. In a joint statement, the nine groups said the ministry bore part of the criminal and moral responsibility for her death, having published her photograph in an official Facebook post along with details of her disappearance and the fact that she had been found “with an acquaintance” in Alexandria, rather than ensuring she was handed over with genuine safeguards in place.

The case had begun three days earlier, when the family’s lawyer, Ahmed Abu El-Nil, posted a video to Facebook showing the girl’s parents pleading with the security services to help find their missing daughter.

The Interior Ministry responded the next day with its own Facebook statement, saying it had traced the girl to the Agami district of Alexandria. She had told investigators she left home of her own will and had been staying with an acquaintance, who was also detained: a private security guard living in Qalyoub, in Qalyoubia governorate. The ministry said legal measures had been taken but did not specify what these were.

The signatories, among them the New Woman Foundation, the Egyptian Center for Women Legal Assistance (CEWLA), Safe Space, and Sanad for Legal Support, said the ministry’s statement exposed a serious failure in the system meant to protect minors from domestic violence, one that “may reflect the Interior Ministry’s own role in inciting the family to commit an act of violence against the girl that cost her her life, driven by a defense of ‘honour.’”

They criticized what they called the ministry’s reliance on “repeated formalistic interventions” in such cases: returning runaway girls to their families and settling for a pledge from relatives to treat them well. Treating these girls simply as runaways, they argued, falls short of real protection: it does nothing to verify they won’t be sent back into a violent environment, or face renewed violence, persecution or reprisal, and does not put in place the measures needed to safeguard their safety and best interests.

The groups also warned against the widespread publication of minors’ names and images, noting how quickly such details turn, in Egypt’s social context, into tools of pressure and gendered stigma.

In a separate statement, CEWLA said the killing was not just an individual moral failing but evidence of a deep crisis of social awareness, one demanding a decisive response from religious, legal and human rights institutions alike. It warned against a culture of justification, and against the rush of reactions and public commentary defending the perpetrator or excusing him under language like “washing away the shame” or “preserving the family’s honor.” 

Celebrating the killer, it said, or describing his crime as an expression of “manhood,” makes his defenders complicit in the victim’s death, encourages the devaluing of human life, and entrenches a rule of the jungle that overrides the authority of the law and the state.

The organisations are calling for the investigation to account fully for every step taken between the girl being found and her being handed over to her family, and for the perpetrator to face a fair, speedy trial on a charge of premeditated murder. They stressed that Article 17 of the penal code, which gives judges discretion to reduce sentences, should not be applied in domestic violence cases.

They are also demanding a review of how girls and women facing threats from their families are handed back, the provision of safe shelters to protect them from reprisal, and binding guidelines for law enforcement social media accounts, including confidentiality guarantees for minors and a ban on publishing their photographs and personal details. CEWLA separately called for the swift passage of a unified law on combating violence against women, and for the removal of penal code provisions that legitimize violence under the guise of a parent’s “right to discipline.”