The NFT art project aims to free insolvent women from Egypt's prisons, who are jailed for failing to repay small loans.
In Egypt, a large part of the population is unbanked. This causes a number of social inclusion problems; one of them is the lack of access to creditEvery year, thousands of Egyptian women take out small loans (between 500 and 1.000 euros) from shopkeepers or relatives. The problem arises when they are unable to repay the installments.
Most of these cases end up in court and with the women being imprisoned. In fact, this is such a common case in the country that women imprisoned for insolvency are known as al-gharemat.
As if that were not enough, justice in the country imposes really harsh prison sentences in the vast majority of cases, without taking into account that it is a social problem. Most women take out these loans to buy household appliances, furniture or even to cover medical expenses when a family member falls ill.
These penalties, which may seem excessive, are a legacy of the old French colonial legal system, in which non-payment of loans was considered a “breach of trust” by the authorities, which punished it with harsh prison sentences of up to three years.
NFT to help female prisoners in Egypt
To help these women who are prisoners in Egypt, the Children of Female Inmates Association (CFPA), has partnered with Horizon FCB Dubai, an advertising agency in the United Arab Emirates, to raise funds and awareness about this issue through an NFT collection.
The collection, called Breakerchains, It is made up of digital artworks created by artists from around the world. Each of these works is priced equivalent to the debt of one of the imprisoned women, so that at the same time buy the NFT We are helping to absorb the loan. After the NFT is purchased, it is the CFPA itself that settles the debt with the lenders.
The ultimate goal is not so much to raise money, for which there are already other organizations, such as to raise awareness in the world about a social problem.
“We thought that drawing attention to this on a large scale could help speed up the process of finding an alternative punishment for non-payments,” said Reham Mufleh, director of advertising agency Horizon FCB Dubai.
The project was launched to coincide with Women's Day in Egypt, which is celebrated on March 21. To date they have managed to sell 25 NFTs, since first The association carefully selects the case and verifies it., to make sure that she really is a woman who needs help. Next, an international artist is contacted to design a Custom NFTSo far, the project has featured artists from the United States, Portugal, Brazil and Egypt.
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