Sudanese women refugees in Egypt face rising sexual exploitation and survival sex

Sudanese women who fled to Egypt to escape the war in their country are facing increasing levels of sexual exploitation, with the Guardian told of single mothers forced to sell their bodies to survive and feed their children.

Many of the women have not previously worked in Sudan, where conservative social norms dictate that men are usually responsible for financial support. Without established trades or professions, and with their husbands and other family members dead or missing, many female refugees are struggling to pay for food, medical care and rent.

The Guardian spoke to 19 aid workers, refugees and medical professionals who say a lack of access to healthcare, education and, at times, food has made the situation for Sudanese women in Egypt increasingly desperate.

Sudan’s civil war triggered the world’s worst displacement crisis, forcing more than 4.5 million people to flee to neighbouring Chad, South Sudan, Libya and Egypt. The situation in Egypt, which took in the largest number of arrivals, with an estimated 1.5 million people crossing the border, has also become significantly worse.

Thousands have found themselves trapped with few resources after a funding shortfall at UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, and the dismantling of USAID eliminated what little support had been available. Unable to work legally, living in poor and often unsafe neighbourhoods, women – who have been among the hardest hit by the war – are acutely vulnerable.

Mariam*, who runs a refugee outreach group in Cairo, says 90% of Sudanese women in her neighbourhood, where rent is cheap, have been subject to sexual exploitation.

“A woman without a husband, who has children, they target her knowing she won’t have enough to feed them,” Mariam says. “She thinks of doing this just once to cover her immediate expenses, but you’re going to be forced to do it every time.”

Even many of those who have spouses are not safe, because their husbands are away from home working long shifts or looking for work in other cities.

Khadiga*, who works in the same refugee outreach group, says: “I know a girl who was taken advantage of and the same man who abused her then began abusing her daughter. Her husband divorced her when he became aware of what had happened.”

Without legal status or proof of their university degrees, even women with professional qualifications, such as teachers and doctors, struggle to find work. Most end up either working informally in factories, where a 10-hour working day nets about 150 Egyptian pounds (EGP; about £2.20), or as domestic workers, where they often go unpaid and sexual assault is commonplace.

Sex work has increasingly become a last resort for women seeking a way out of grinding poverty. “These women have been here since the war started and they are desperate,” says Alaa*, who works for an organisation that helps the women.

Five women described their experiences to the Guardian, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Before the war, Maha* says she worked as a supervisor at a poultry farm in Sudan, living what she describes as a simple but happy life with her three teenage children, after divorcing their father. She was captured and detained by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who accused her of collaborating with the Sudanese military.

At the time, Maha says, her children had been staying with her former sister-in-law. Unable to find them after she was released and afraid she would be detained again, she fled to Egypt in 2024. She worked informally in a pharmaceutical factory until four months ago, when she lost two fingers in a workplace accident. Struggling to find other work to pay her bills, she started doing sex work. “I do this to cover my rent. If I don’t pay, they will kick me out.”

At night she stands in the street, waiting for passing cars to signal. Payment is about EGP300-600. “I get into cars with strangers. This is what I have to do to survive.”

Maha does not know if her children are still alive in Sudan. “I pray to God to be reunited with my children. But I worry that because I’m doing this, God will never give my children back.”

Sara*, a single mother who fled to Egypt in 2023, says she is “forced to sell herself” to be able to feed her two teenage daughters, but struggles to keep them away from sexual violence. She says her 14-year-old was attacked on the staircase of their apartment building by a Sudanese man, who tore the clothes from her body in an attempted sexual assault, before she was rescued by neighbours.

Workers at refugee organisations also describe how some women are lured into sex work when they first arrive in Egypt, with offers to expedite their residency paperwork. Aisha*, an aid worker, says homeless women are “easy targets” and often engage in sex work for cash or food. “The person who hands her a meal will tell her, ‘I can give you more if you come with me for a few hours’; she will go. Anyone who just arrived from Sudan won’t refuse such an offer,” she says.

Even women who find jobs frequently report being sexually exploited. Zeina*, 21, says her factory boss started visiting her home in the evenings, demanding sex and threatening to withhold her pay and fire her if she did not comply. Desperate to put an end to the abuse, she began shouting at him outside her apartment one night, hoping the neighbours would intervene. Instead, they suggested she was at fault. Feeling trapped, she decided her only option was to return to Sudan.

Zeina’s story highlights a cruel but common dilemma for women being sexually exploited or engaging in sex work. Despite having already survived a gauntlet of bombings, killings, rape and violence at the hands of armed militias to get to Egypt, returning to Sudan often becomes their only escape for many.

Aid workers say exploitation remains under-reported because fear and shame surround the subject of sex outside marriage, even in the context of abuse. Some women fear they could be killed by their own families, but most are wary of becoming outcasts in their community.

Mohamed*, a doctor at a healthcare organisation in Cairo, says he treats at least 10 women every week who report being sexually exploited or engaging in sex work. Many come to him pregnant and seeking abortions. He says the high number of unwanted pregnancies that he and colleagues are witnessing indicates the scale of the problem.

For women, pregnancy presents another impossible situation: in Egypt, children born outside marriage are not legally recognised, while abortion is illegal. Mohamed says those who can find the EGP3,000-4,000 will buy parallel-market tablets of misoprostol – an abortifacient drug that triggers uterine contractions.

But those without money must often resort to dangerous home abortions. Just last month, says Mohamed, two pregnant women who did not have money to buy the pills died after they attempted to insert pieces of wood into themselves, after they had been told it would dilate the cervix and cause a miscarriage.

Mohamed says the lack of legal reproductive healthcare and the high cost of drugs imposes a cruel secondary burden on women who are already traumatised. “It is exploiting the outcome of previous exploitation,” he says.