Egyptian Street Children’s Help Group Founders Released from Prison

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In the wake of the events of the Egyptian Arab Spring, a couple who founded an organization to work with street children found themselves charged with sex crimes and human trafficking and thrown in prison for 3 years.

According to the couple, one day a father came to them looking for a child they said they had not seen, and after the father became abusive, they went to file a report at the police station, but found themselves charged with human trafficking.

American politicians, including Obama, Ted Cruz, and most recently Trump (who met with the Egyptian president 6 weeks ago) lobbied to try to get them out of prison. Half of the couple, the woman Aya Hijazi, is American.

The acquittal came as a total surprise to the couple who heard about it from the judge as they attended a court hearing in the cage. Shortly thereafter, Hijazi met Trump in the White House.