ASMAA FATHÎ

Cairo- People have been going through a difficult time due to the economic crisis affecting the whole world. Egypt is one of the countries suffering from an economic crisis. In the country, the people cannot buy even their basic needs. Most people going shopping return home empty-handed. NuJINHA interviewed women in Egyptian popular markets to learn about the impact of the price hikes on them, especially during the month of Ramadan.

“We cannot buy food for our children because of the high prices”

“There is nothing worse than not being able to buy food for your children,” a woman named Hind Jamal said that she hasn’t gone through such a difficult time in her life until now. Stating that the current price hikes are deliberate, she called on the government to monitor the markets in order to prevent deliberate price hikes. Hind Jamal told us that she tries to buy poor quality products due to the high prices of good quality products because her salary does not exceed 1,500 Egyptian pounds (About 81 US dollars).

“The costs of school supplies double”

30-year-old Nadia Ali has supported her family since her father died five years ago. She works in a state hospital and she works 12 hours per day and her salary is less than 2,500 pounds. “I don’t have time to spend with my family of five. I meet the school expenses of my two brothers but the costs of school supplies double now. The priority in our life now is to be able to buy food because we cannot buy other things due to their high prices,” she told us.

“I postpone my dream”

Mai Gamal El-Din studied English to have a good career in the future but after the recent wave of high prices, she had to postpone her plan. “My husband's salary is 3,200 pounds and mine is 2,000 pounds. I could save money from our salaries to improve my language skills but now we cannot save money anymore.  For this reason, I decided to postpone my dream of learning English.”

“Clothes and hobbies are a luxury for us”

Emphasizing that buying new clothes or even having hobbies such as listening to music, buying books and other things have become an unattainable luxury for them, especially after the recent price hikes, Samia Fawzi thinks these are “dreams” for them now.

Laila Imad, a housewife in her fifties, said that the prices of vegetables are very expensive. “The price of a kilo of tomatoes is about 20 pounds while the price of a kilo of green pepper is about 15-20 pounds. A kilo of eggplant is sold for 10 pounds. People cannot buy even vegetables now,” she told us.

“Women are most affected by the economic crisis”

Stating that the recent economic crisis affects couples, family consultant Nadia Jamal emphasized that women are most affected by the economic crisis, “because they shoulder the entire burden for their families.”