Sudan Media Forum
Cairo, June 28, 2026 — Since the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, nearly 1.5 million Sudanese have fled to Egypt, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Women and children account for the majority of those who arrived, and thousands of Sudanese refugee women have found themselves confronting a harsh economic reality, forcing them to seek any available source of income after losing their jobs, savings, and livelihoods.
In factories, farms, and private homes, Sudanese refugee women work long hours for meager wages, often without employment contracts or legal and social protection. Many once held teaching, administrative, or professional positions and possessed university degrees, yet the war has compelled them to accept physically demanding manual labor far removed from their qualifications and previous careers.
Students Women … When the Struggle for a Livelihood Competes with the Right to Education
The war’s impact has not been limited to women who lost their jobs. It has also pushed university students and even underage girls into the labor market prematurely to help support their families or finance their education.
The testimonies of three Sudanese students reveal that factory and agricultural work has become more than a temporary necessity—it is now an integral part of their daily lives, as they struggle to balance exhausting work schedules with the pursuit of higher education.
N., a woman in her twenties from South Darfur, says she began working after her family settled in 6th of October City in 2024. As the eldest daughter, she assumed responsibility for helping support her family while both parents suffered from health problems and her sisters battled anemia. Since then, she has worked in plastic, cardboard, steel, and potato processing factories, in addition to berry farms.
She explains that a typical workday lasts around 12 hours for a daily wage of approximately EGP 300. Even this modest income is unpredictable, as wages are sometimes reduced without notice or delayed for weeks. She left several factories after her pay was gradually cut and frequently had to borrow money simply to meet her family’s basic needs while waiting for overdue wages.
Working conditions were equally harsh. Breaks were brief, restroom facilities were inadequate, and some jobs—such as cleaning raw steel—required handling sharp, heated materials. Despite the physical exhaustion, she returned home each evening to study, determined to continue her education.
R.N.S., who had been studying dentistry before the war, says displacement to Egypt replaced university lecture halls with strawberry, grape, and peach farms. Her workday begins before dawn so she can arrive at the fields by 6:00 a.m., where she carries irrigation hoses and sorts thousands of strawberry seedlings under productivity-based quotas.
She says the physical labor is compounded by repeated discrimination and bullying because she is Sudanese. Some co-workers mocked her, deliberately poured out her drinking water, hid her food, and harassed her whenever she went to the restroom, forcing her to leave several jobs.
She also sustained repeated injuries while using sharp pruning shears in grape farms, yet received neither first aid nor medical care. She continued working because she could not afford to lose her daily income. Part of her earnings supports her family, while the remainder covers tuition for her distance-learning university program.
“I work to survive. I work to continue my education. And I work to keep alive the dream of returning home one day.”
G.A. entered the labor market before reaching the age of sixteen. After her family fled to Egypt, she found herself working in strawberry and grape farms near an industrial zone instead of attending school.
She recalls developing severe skin allergies from exposure to chemical fertilizers. The farm management refused to cover her medical treatment and warned that any worker who became ill would not be allowed to return. She also endured verbal abuse from one supervisor and worked on a farm that provided only one shared restroom for both men and women.
She says younger girls were expected to work harder because they were considered physically stronger, while wage increases went primarily to older workers. Much of her already limited income is spent on school fees so she can remain connected to her education.
She sums up her experience in one sentence:
“I’m still young, but I have no choice except to work.”
Domestic Work: Vulnerability Behind Closed Doors
Away from production lines and agricultural fields, employment inside private homes has offered little additional safety. Instead, it has exposed refugee women to another form of vulnerability, where oversight is absent and workers face employers or labor brokers alone, without written contracts or legal guarantees.
The testimonies of refugee women employed in domestic work reveal recurring patterns of abuse, beginning with employers changing agreed job responsibilities after hiring, followed by delayed salary payments and unexplained deductions, restrictions on phone use and freedom of movement, and a heavy reliance on brokers or personal connections to secure employment.
After losing her pregnancy following an accident while traveling to a farm where she worked, A.A. had no option but to enter domestic service through an Egyptian labor broker who promised her a monthly salary of EGP 7,500 for six months. Reality proved very different. Beyond cleaning duties, she was required to shop for the family, take out the garbage, and perform additional tasks that had never been agreed upon. She was prohibited from using her mobile phone during working hours, her salary was delayed for more than a month, and unexplained deductions were made from her wages. As her pregnancy progressed and the physical demands intensified, she was forced to resign to protect her health.
R.M.A., a medical laboratory graduate who was also pregnant, recounts a similar experience after failing to find employment in her field. She worked for an Egyptian household for EGP 3,500 per month, cleaning the house and caring for children from 7:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., four or five days a week. She says the salary barely covered transportation and living expenses, she received only one meal per day, and she was prohibited from using her phone or leaving before completing every assigned task. As her pregnancy advanced and her blood pressure dropped, she was no longer physically able to continue working.
A.M.F., a mother of five, says domestic work never provided the stability she had hoped for. She moved between cleaning occupied homes and vacant apartments under subcontracting arrangements through labor brokers who retained a portion of her earnings. Despite working long hours, her income remained irregular and insufficient to support her family. She was eventually forced to send one of her children to work in a factory to help cover household expenses, while she could no longer afford school fees for her other children. Some were compelled to continue studying from home and sit examinations through educational centers.
“I earn only EGP 150 for cleaning work in Giza. The work is unstable. My children had to rely on home-based learning and take exams through educational centers, and I couldn’t even afford the examination fees for one of them.”
She concludes that the work she turned to in order to secure her children’s education ultimately failed to keep them in school.
The Legal Framework, Labour, and Gender
Legal expert Ashraf Milad explains that Egypt’s refugee protection framework is based on a combination of the country’s new Asylum Law, its executive regulations, and international conventions. He notes that the executive regulations are intended to govern implementation rather than establish new legal principles.
Among the positive developments, he cites the extension of asylum card validity, the incorporation of the best interests of the child, and clearer procedures governing appeals, voluntary return, and resettlement. However, he also points to implementation challenges, particularly provisions that criminalize certain forms of assistance or accommodation, which may negatively affect refugee protection in practice.
Milad notes that refugees often access employment through intermediaries without contracts or effective legal safeguards, leaving them outside institutional protection. The central gap, he argues, lies not only in legislation itself but in implementation, oversight, and refugees’ limited access to justice when employment or residency disputes arise.
Egyptian Labour Law: A Gap Between Legislation and Reality
Egypt’s Labour Law No. 14 of 2025 regulates employer-employee relations, including fair wages, working hours, leave entitlements, and occupational safety.
In practice, however, the law does not establish a distinct framework for refugees, instead treating them as foreign workers. This leaves significant gaps in effective protection, particularly in the informal economy, where daily labor, labor brokers, and unwritten employment arrangements are widespread. The disconnect between legal protections and actual working conditions is especially evident in agriculture, manufacturing, and domestic work, sectors heavily dependent on vulnerable labor.
Multiple Layers of Vulnerability
Manal Abdel Halim, a gender specialist, says refugee women employed in factories, farms, and production lines generally work outside internationally recognized labor standards, within an unregulated and highly precarious environment.
She stresses that refugee women do not freely choose these jobs but are driven by the absence of alternatives, placing them in a condition of “multiple vulnerability” resulting from the intersection of displacement, gender, and family responsibilities. This significantly increases their exposure to exploitation.
Weak regulation and inadequate legal protection, she says, force many women to accept long working hours, low wages, and employment without contracts. She also identifies limited awareness as a critical factor, noting that many women—including university graduates—are unfamiliar with labor laws or complaint mechanisms available to them.
Displacement and the Reshaping of Gender Roles
Gender expert Al-Naqiya Al-Waseela argues that the experiences of Sudanese refugee women in Egypt represent a continuation of forced displacement but under far harsher conditions because they must adapt to an entirely new host environment.
She notes that Sudanese women have historically borne the greatest burdens of displacement within Sudan itself. Crossing international borders further intensifies challenges related to language, employment, housing, and the loss of social support networks.
One of the most significant sources of vulnerability, she explains, is the transition from a familiar economy to an entirely informal labor market dependent on brokers rather than formal employment channels. Displacement has also transformed family dynamics, with many women becoming primary breadwinners while simultaneously carrying caregiving responsibilities.
She concludes that this experience is not merely a humanitarian refugee issue but a profound social transformation exposing the structural fragility of marginalized communities both before and after displacement.
Refugees and Egypt’s Labour Market: UNHCR Perspective
Public data published by UNHCR indicate that refugees in Egypt, including Sudanese refugees, face major obstacles to economic integration because of limited access to formal employment.
According to the agency’s reports, a large proportion of refugees rely on informal or temporary work to meet their basic needs, exposing them to exploitation due to the absence of contracts and social protection. Women and children remain the most vulnerable groups within the refugee population because they are disproportionately dependent on informal work and have limited access to legal and social support.
UNHCR emphasizes the need to strengthen legal protection, expand access to formal employment opportunities, and provide psychosocial and social support for those most affected.
Sudan Media Forum and its member organizations are publishing this two-part investigation to document how the war in Sudan has forced dozens of Sudanese refugee women—many of whom previously worked in professional, administrative, or technical occupations and held university degrees—to take jobs on factory production lines, agricultural farms, or as domestic workers after seeking refuge in Egypt. Their testimonies demonstrate that educational qualifications and professional experience have failed to secure employment matching their skills. Instead, the urgent need to earn a living has left many exposed to exploitation, abuse, and unsafe working conditions, highlighting the profound vulnerability they face in the absence of effective protection.
