“Nawal Mustafa” won the Princess Sabeeka Al Khalifa International Award for Women Empowerment

The Egyptian writer, Nawal Mustafa, CEO and founder of the Children of Female Prisoners Association (CFPA), won the Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa International Award for Women’s Empowerment, for her prominent role in empowering poor women and their children from former and current prisoners.

The second cycle of the “Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa International Award for Women’s Empowerment” was launched in joint cooperation between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United Nations in June of 2021. The arbitration committee is chaired by Dr. Sima Sami Bahouth, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women.

Nawal Mostafa established the (CFPA) Association, to take care of this group, who are destined to live behind prison bars and inside cells without a crime they committed. She succeeded in drawing society’s attention to this serious issue after a major press campaign that she published on the pages of Al-Akhbar newspaper, after which she was the pioneer in the case of female prisoners of poverty, which was then adopted by society under the name of “female debtors”.

During her trip, she was able to release the first female debtor from Egyptian prisons in 2007, support nearly 5,000 female prisoners of poverty, pay off debts of 8,000 debts, and launch two workshops to teach handicrafts and sewing in Qanater prison and in Damanhour prison, and established a business incubator to receive the former prisoners to be as an income resource for them.

It also succeeded in training 6,000 women in handicrafts, employing 2,000 women, and establishing more than 650 small projects, in addition to providing in-kind, medical, and nutritional assistance to 30,000 children inside and outside female prisons. She launched the Child Creativity Center to rehabilitate children, develop their skills and discover their talents, which more than 500 children were trained.