The talking heads fixated on Mother’s Day yesterday, with wall-to-wall coverage of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s directives at the “Mother of the Year” ceremony to introduce new policies to support women and mothers in Egypt. Among those singing praises were from Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 1:26) and Masaa DMC’s Eman El Hosary (watch, runtime: 1:35). The president also phoned into CBC’s Min Masr to reiterate the state’s commitment to supporting women, especially those with success stories (watch, runtime: 5:30).

Among the key priorities: The president ordered his government to address the phenomenon of indebted women who are jailed over unpaid debts, which he previously touched on at a similar ceremony back in 2019. This long standing issue could be resolved through legislative amendments, El Hekaya’s Amr Adib said (watch, runtime: 3:43). Misr El Kheir Foundation is also currently working on a program to help put an end to the phenomenon, foundation director Mohsen Mahgoub told Adib (watch, runtime: 4:59).

The president also called for changes to the Personal Status Act that would set a minimum age of marriage for both women and men to crack down on child marriage, which Adib hailed as a “historical milestone” (watch, runtime: 4:14). The draft law — which has been met with plenty of public controversy — will be put up for public consultations, Social Solidarity Minister Nevine El Kabbaj told El Hosary. El Kabbaj drew a parallel to the NGOs Act, which was also highly controversial in its initial form but went through several rounds of consultations with key stakeholders before being passed into law (watch, runtime: 8:11).