Egyptian Feminists: The New Labor Law Marks Progress, but Still Insufficient
By: Hagar Osman
Three Egyptian feminists say the new labor law, which came into effect at the beginning of September, includes promising provisions for protecting women at work, particularly those that clearly define harassment and discrimination. But they stress that these protections remain meaningless without concrete guarantees and clear mechanisms to enforce them.
Intissar Al Saeed: Superficial gains, but no real commitment to gender justice
Lawyer and chairwoman of the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, Intissar Al Saeed, believes that Law No. 14 of 2025 offers a few formal improvements but ultimately fails to embrace gender justice.
She highlights gaps such as the vague definition of flexible leave, including care leave for single mothers, the absence of mandatory quotas for women’s representation on councils, and the exclusion of domestic workers and the informal sector.
She told Sharika Wa Laken that the law does not contain a dedicated definition of sexual harassment and should have required institutions to adopt written policies to prevent violence and harassment in the workplace.
She acknowledges that the law grants working women some rights, such as equal pay for work of equal value, an important step toward addressing the gender wage gap, and extending paid maternity leave from three to four months, available up to three times during a woman’s career. Still, she argues, these measures fall far short of ensuring meaningful justice for women.
Al Saeed also criticized the exclusion of domestic workers and informal labor, saying this leaves thousands of women without any legal protection.
She described the requirement that an employer have one hundred women employees to establish a childcare facility as unrealistic and a barrier that denies most women in small factories and companies a basic right.
She warned that the law could encourage indirect discrimination, noting that employers may avoid hiring women of childbearing age to sidestep obligations. Without serious monitoring and effective labor inspections, she said, these legal provisions will remain unenforced. She concluded that improving women’s working conditions requires a comprehensive, systemic approach rather than piecemeal amendments, and meaningful involvement from the feminist movement and civil society to ensure the voices of women workers are represented.
Mai Saleh: The system, not the law, is what’s broken
Mai Saleh, director of the Women, Work, and Economic Rights Program at the New Woman Foundation, argues that the new labor law must be understood within a broader context: a deeply flawed system that governs labor relations.
She explained to Sharika Wa Laken that the issue lies not in the law itself, whether old or new, but in a system that consistently fails workers. Part of this failure is rooted in the philosophy behind social legislation, which should protect the weaker party in the employment relationship but instead favors the stronger one. This imbalance undermines any guarantees the law might offer. Even the best legal text will falter when applied within a system that resists enforcement.
She added that this system weakens labor unions and prevents them from defending their members’ rights against employers. She said, “If the entire structure is broken, no labor law can magically fix everything. At best, it can secure a minimum level of rights.”
Despite this, she acknowledged that the new law includes gains achieved after years of struggle, pressure, and discussion dating back to 2013. Feminist organizations were central to these debates, and the New Woman Foundation was among them. They succeeded in securing small but significant victories, particularly given the strong opposition from members of the legislative committee and business owners to any provisions protecting women from workplace violence.
Saleh said the amendments addressing violence, harassment, and discrimination are an important step. The law’s first chapter includes definitions of harassment and bullying, and articles 4 and 274 require employers to prohibit harassment, bullying, and all forms of verbal, physical, or psychological violence, and to ensure a safe, non hostile work environment.
Article 4 explicitly bans forced or coerced labor and prohibits all forms of abuse. It also requires workplace regulations to include disciplinary measures for such violations.
She welcomed the inclusion of agricultural women workers who were previously excluded under the old law and praised the introduction of one day of paternity leave, calling it a positive shift that challenges gendered expectations around childcare and encourages broader conversations about shared responsibility. However, she noted that the law still excludes domestic workers.
She criticized the law for overlooking key reproductive and health rights. It does not grant miscarriage leave, even though miscarriage is physically and emotionally demanding, and it does not provide menstrual leave, which many countries have adopted.
The death of baby Celia and the Convention on Workers with Family Responsibilities
As the Egyptian government celebrated the rollout of the new unified labor law, promoting it as a milestone for women’s rights and highlighting its dedicated chapter on women’s employment, the death of infant Celia shook the labor and human rights community. The baby died in her mother’s arms while the mother was at work in a textile factory, after her supervisor refused to let her leave to take the child to the hospital.
The National Council for Women, Egypt’s official women’s rights body established in 2000, issued a statement thanking President Abdel Fattah El Sisi for announcing the signing of the new labor law. The council praised what it described as strong political support for the rights of working women.
Responding to the incident that the law failed to address, the director of the Women and Work Program explained that although the International Labor Organization has long adopted the Convention on Workers with Family Responsibilities, which guarantees workers fully paid leave in such situations, the Egyptian law denies workers paid leave when caring for sick family members, the elderly, or children. Instead, the leave is unpaid. She said it makes no sense for a woman with a sick child, who already struggles to cover treatment costs, to be forced into unpaid leave. This reality pushes many women to continue working while carrying their infants, exposing them to tragedies like the case in Alexandria, where baby Celia died in her mother’s arms at a textile factory after the supervisor refused to let her take the child to the hospital.
Mai Saleh noted that while including definitions of harassment and bullying in the new law is a meaningful improvement, the law still lacks the protection guarantees outlined in ILO Convention 190 and Recommendation 206, particularly those concerning witnesses, whistleblowers, and survivors of violence. She added that there are no clear channels for reporting or addressing complaints, and the absence of specialized units within workplaces reinforces a culture of silence and fear among women workers. She also highlighted that the new law imposes far lighter penalties for workplace harassment than the Penal Code, which allows for imprisonment, whereas the labor law caps penalties at a fine of no more than one hundred thousand Egyptian pounds.
She expressed hope that the necessary ministerial decisions will soon be issued to clarify the law’s articles and outline monitoring and enforcement procedures. She stressed that the law alone is not enough; without clear implementation mechanisms, it will not be applied in practice. She added that the Ministry of Labor already has central and local gender equality units, but these units must have real authority rather than the purely advisory role they currently play.
According to Saleh, these units, alongside ministerial regulations, are responsible for monitoring employers and ensuring compliance with the new law. However, past experiences show that when women were subjected to harassment or discrimination, these units merely received complaints and then forwarded them to the National Council for Women. She concluded her statement to Sharika Wa Laken saying that staff in these units must be trained in gender-based violence in order to distinguish between general workplace abuse and abuse specifically targeting women because they are women.
Mona Ezzat: Without ministerial regulations, the law remains unenforceable
Mona Ezzat, chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Al Noon Family Care Foundation, agrees. She says that although the new law introduces clear provisions criminalizing violence and discrimination against women in the workplace, these provisions need to be backed by concrete ministerial regulations. Without them, she argues, the articles remain theoretical and cannot be meaningfully enforced.
She praised the section on women’s employment, noting that the law now grants working mothers four months of paid maternity leave instead of the previous three, a positive amendment that gives mothers more time with their newborns.
However, Ezzat said she had hoped for a more progressive amendment that would move beyond traditional gendered caregiving roles. Childcare leave, she argued, should be a shared responsibility between men and women, yet the law assigns it exclusively to women. She also pointed out that the law grants fathers only one day of paternity leave, used mainly for administrative tasks such as obtaining a birth certificate.
She added that the law continues to address only women in the article, requiring employers with one hundred women employees to establish or contract with a childcare facility. The wording completely excludes working fathers. She asked: “Why shouldn’t fathers also be able to take their children to daycare?”
By: Hagar Osman
