Thursday March 28th, 2024
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Naguib Sawiris Offers Employment Opportunities to Now-Famous Clothes Smugglers

After a humiliating video of six kids caught smuggling went viral, Money Mogul Naguib Sawiris decided to step up and interfere.

Staff Writer

Naguib Sawiris Offers Employment Opportunities to Now-Famous Clothes Smugglers

After a video covering six Egyptian kids in Ismailia lined up against a wall and handcuffed went viral on the internet, Naguib Sawiris hired the kids, offering them new jobs and condemning the governorate’s actions.

"I have sent a lawyer to the customs authority for reconciliation and, if possible, to free them and hire them," Sawiris said in a tweet. He also added that he’s hiring a lawyer to help provide any legal assistance or paperwork necessary for the minors, according to Al-Ahram.

Sawiris also mocked Salwa Hussein, the interviewer in the video, for the career advice she appeared to be giving in the video, such as going into "investment" instead of resorting to smuggling.


The video, which was posted on Port Said governorate’s official Facebook page, gained a lot of attraction and negative criticism from its viewers, vilifying Hussein for her ill treatment of the six minors. The video shows Hussein darting questions at the boys, some of them insensitive, and scolding them for “harming” Egypt

The minors, who were caught smuggling foreign clothes as income opportunity, were scolded on the video and told that they should make “an honest living” and do illegal work rather than resorting to smuggling. Hussein recommended the boys to work in cleaning companies, to which one of the boys responded "What could I do with EGP 50? Would it feed my three sisters and mother? I made EGP 150 while smuggling. The situation is hard." Other responses from the boys in the video ranged from “No one else wanted to hire me,” to condemning the authorities for reprimanding the poor for corruption but not the rich for the same actions.

The Port Said governor, Adel Al-Ghadhban, soon apologised for the “extremely disturbing” recorded interview, and the page was soon shut down.

The detainees all came from different parts of Egypt (i.e. Fayoum, Sohag). In 2017, there was a recorded number of one million children working in hazardous conditions.