Update 20th June, 2021: Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Haneen Hossam to 10 years in prison and a fine of 200,000 pounds, and Mawada Eladhm, and 3 others, to 6 years in prison and a fine of 200,000 pounds each, on accusations of “human trafficking.”

The Cairo Criminal Court decided today to postpone the hearings of Haneen Hossam and Mawada Eladhm, and others who are accused of human trafficking, for the June 20 ruling session.

During the court, Mawada Eladhm broke down from crying after her Tiktok videos were screened at court.

Haneen Hossam was not present since she’s been released on bail.

Mawada Eladhm and Haneen Hossam have been accused of not just human trafficking but exploitation of children as well.

Videos from today’s court have been circulating, which show Mawada crying and the videos used as evidence against her.

(We chose not to share the videos since it’s still an ongoing case and out of respect to the women involved.)

The videos she’s been accused of exploitation through show Mawada promoting a Chinese live-streaming app.

What are the accusations?

According to the referral order, the Public Prosecutor accused Haneen of human trafficking of two children under 18 years of age. 

It’s claimed that Haneen allegedly promised the two children to provide them with job opportunities by becoming “hosts” on an app.

What’s the app, and how does it work?

First and foremost, it’s important to note that the app is currently still available on the Google Playstore.

But now, let us explain what Haneen and Mawda’s roles were with the app and how it was taken as human trafficking.

Representatives from the app hired Haneen Hossam, Mawada Eladhm, and the other people involved in the case as “Recruiters” to promote it through their platforms. 

Basically, they get paid for every “host” they have registered to the website.

This could have sounded fishy a few years back, but now it’s how all influencers work. They promote something, and they get paid for it.

And needless to say, those who hired them to promote the app are far from supporting the girls.

What’s a “host”?

A host on this app is someone who opens a live stream and chats with viewers. 

It’s more or less the Chinese version of Twitch, but less gaming and more rambling. 

Hosts get sent “gifts” via the app, which they can exchange for real money. 

And of course, the app was used for indecent live streams, even with the underage girls:

Now, as you can imagine, these unsupervised live sessions can easily go south. Especially with younger girls who become obsessed with attention and money, they can do whatever to get more of it.

With that said, similar cases happen on all platforms, and it’s hard to control.

A not-so-fun fact; there’s a major group on Facebook where parents sell pornographic videos of their kids, and it’s been there for years. No matter how many times it’s reported, Facebook doesn’t think it’s against their regulations. 

Twitter is known to have several accounts where people post inappropriate pictures of their family members.

We’re not saying what happened on the live-streaming app is acceptable, but it happens.

We really don’t think Haneen Hossam and Mawada Eladhm thought this was more than a random influencing gig and probably didn’t think of the consequences. 

Now we mean this in the nicest way possible, but both Haneen and Mawada have proven that they might not be as bright as they should be, which explains why they would agree to promote a dodgy app. 

You know what? Scratch that; the app isn’t even that dodgy! It has a decent rating on the app store, and they probably didn’t know better. 

These women fell for an influencer’s pyramids scheme, and they paid the price.

Pyramid schemes have been around since god knows when. They’re illegal almost everywhere, but they’re still alive and well. 

Remember Q-net? Yup, still operates in Egypt!

In these women’s cases, they wanted to recruit, get paid, and probably weren’t aware that they’re responsible for these recruited children’s behavior. 

Don’t get us wrong; we think these women are at fault for enabling these children’s actions. 

Should they have done their research? Sure. Should they be held accountable for their actions? Of course. 

Should they be in jail, though? Honestly, if they found to be aware of what the children were doing without taking action, or worse, encouraged them to do so, then yes, they should be. 

The main issue isn’t them being prosecuted but rather how the media is dealing with it.

Whether they’re found guilty or not, Haneen and Mawada already lost the case.

With excessive slut-shaming, rumors, and everything in between, they’re done.

This case indeed shows the ugliest side of Egyptian media and how they’ll keep using sex to sell whatever they want to sell.

The case involves child exploitation, yet the main focus is what these women do or dress on Tiktok.