Egyptian families pay huge price for gender-based violence

Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) has revealed that families in the country pay a huge price as a result of gender-based violence. Countrywide, this amounts to an estimated 1.49 billion Egyptian pounds resulting from partner violence alone; that is made up of 831 million EGP direct costs, and 662 million EGP indirectly.

According to a new study by CAPMAS, around 42.5 per cent of Egyptian women experience psychological violence from their husbands. The study found that illiterate women are more likely to face physical violence from their husbands, at 37 per cent. Most Egyptian women — a staggering 86 per cent — experience psychological problems as a result of violence perpetrated by their husbands.

#SisiEra

This translates into the burden of paying for treatment and related costs, amounting to 2,210 EGP per annum for every family. That is around 13.2 per cent of the total family expenditure.

The amount spent on medicine represents 56.4 per cent of the total direct expenditure on health. A small proportion of households suffer catastrophic expenditure levels; the figure currently stands at 4.4 per cent.