The interest first and foremost .. Why do young Egyptians marry foreigners on the shores of Sinai?

Bassem Magdy - South Sinai

Visitors to the tourist city of Dahab know the famous pizza restaurant, which features Italian cuisine at the tourist city's walkway on the Gulf of Aqaba in southern Sinai.

This restaurant embodies the love story between Egyptian owner Ramez and his Italian wife, who tells visitors and hangs pictures of the restaurant since it was founded 25 years ago.

Ramez told Al Jazeera Net that he was one of the first to start a business in the city of Dahab, asserting that he had come here since the city was desert.

Near the restaurant Hossam tells us - one of the workers in a city hotel - that Dahab is full of marriage stories of Egyptians and foreigners, especially Russian women and even Israeli women, and find these stories in many hotels and cafés (cafes) of the city, explaining that the owner of the hotel is an Egyptian married to English living Now in London with his sons.

The city of Dahab is cheap compared to the rest of the tourist cities and is based on unregulated tourism fueled by travelers with backpacks or the so-called "back packers".

It is also characterized by the specificity of direct contact with Egyptian youth due to the spread of the Bedouin camps, unlike the big cities such as Sharm el-Sheikh where the relationship is more formal.

Marriage Interest
Mahmoud, the owner of a small restaurant in the center of the city, said that the marriage of Egyptians to foreigners is mostly based on interest. The foreigner wants to stay in Egypt and live in Dahab and marry an Egyptian who gives her the right to permanent residence. The Egyptian aspires to travel abroad with her.

Mahmoud explains that some Egyptians participate in the start of a commercial project in the city. The relationship is basically business, which is the main reason why these marriages are not long lasting or may continue without a happy relationship.

A study by researcher Mustafa Abdullah in the book "Gender and Sex in Muslim Cultures" shows that young men seek customary marriage from foreign women in Dahab, where customary marriage contracts have become the main source of income for lawyers in the city who have ready-made contracts bearing witness names.

"The young man is forced to marry a foreign girl," he said in an interview with al-Jazeera.net. "If a marriage is customary, it avoids problems with the security authorities and needs to satisfy his sexual and emotional desire. The social and economic conditions that you pay for a relationship with a foreigner can be spent on.

The foreign woman, according to the researcher, does not want to marry legally, because she does not want to be associated with a less social, often uneducated person who does not have the money, and may make her lose some of the benefits she receives in her home country. That the foreigners will be more free where you come to Egypt whenever you like and find the young man you want.

The researcher draws attention to the results of such a marriage, where the foreigner returns to her country and may have children whose father knows nothing. The researcher documents in his studies a number of cases and speaks of young people crying in front of him for not being able to see their children in Europe.

documentation
According to the Egyptian press, about 10 cases of marriage are documented daily to young Egyptians, mainly Russian women, who are under the age of 30, while the wife is about 50 years old.

According to Law 68 of 1947 and amended by Law No. 103 of 1976 on the marriage of Egyptians to foreigners, the age difference between spouses should not exceed 25 years. If the age difference exceeds 25 years, The dollar is about 18 pounds).

Marriage to Israeli women

In 1990, Egyptian records documented the first formal marriage between an Egyptian and an Israeli after the signing of the Camp David Accords. As of November 1996, the number of marriages reached 17.

In her book "Forbidden Marriage," Hala Fouad described the phenomenon of Egyptian marriage to Israeli women, describing it as a time bomb because the children masturbate in the nationality of the mother according to Israeli law and thus carry the Egyptian and Israeli sexual children.

She explained the lack of Egyptian authorities to the existence of statistics on the numbers of young people who traveled to Israel and married Israeli women.

In June 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld this ruling and forced the Ministry of the Interior to present the request for dismissal on a case-by-case basis, And exclude Egyptians married to Palestinian Arabs.

Drop to date
According to the professor of Israeli studies at Ain Shams University, Ahmed Hammad, the marriage of Egyptian Jews to Israeli women means "a projection of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a drop of blood among them." He pointed out that these young people "dropped their nationality by marrying Israeli women, Press Releases.

The book, "Forbidden Marriage," monitors the different stories of marriage from one case to another, including what happens in the Sinai when the Israeli girl seduces an Egyptian young man who works in villages and hotels to end the story of marriage and travel to Israel, and other tales beginning and ending in Israel, performed by young Egyptians working in Israel Most of which are aimed at obtaining legal residence.

The book quoted a study by researcher Najwa Abdel Hamid that the reasons for the arrival of tourists in the Sinai villages to marry Israeli women is to help them bring Israeli tourists to their villages, or the desire of Israeli girls to participate in one of the wealthy Egyptians in the establishment of a tourist village, Recruitment in the Israeli army because Israeli military law prevents Arab women from serving in the army.

The researcher, Hala Fuad, recalls the Israeli story of Vered Shammu, who came to Sinai with the aim of opening a summer center for treatment. She succeeded in marrying an Egyptian young man named Ali. After obtaining her residency in Egypt, she asked for a divorce immediately after she achieved her goal of owning a project on Egyptian land.

Mahmoud, the owner of the restaurant in Dahab, explains that the stories of Israeli women marrying from time to time, and cited an example of a famous tourist camp in the region of Ras Shitan, whose owner married an Israeli to help bring tourists to the camp.

Mahmoud says that Egyptians married to Israeli women usually refrain from talking about it, fearing that they will lose Egyptian nationality or that they and their wives will be exposed to security problems.