With angry protesters challenging the Egyptian government’s grip on strategic cities of the Suez Canal, the army chief warning of the potential “collapse of the state,” violent sexual assault plaguing demonstrations in Tahrir Square and more than 50 deaths in the latest round of street clashes, the nation’s prime minster spoke this week on state television about a social problem that few people saw coming: unclean breasts.
In rambling remarks broadcast on the state broadcaster Nile TV, Prime Minister Hisham Qandil turned his attention to the problem of diarrhea among infants in the Egyptian countryside. Specifically, he said: “I am certain, I don’t know, but am certain, that there are villages in Egypt in the 21st century where children get diarrhea” because “the mother nurses them and out of ignorance does not undertake personal hygiene of her breasts.” He also said that in many rural areas, “there is no water and there is no sanitary sewer drainage.”
Mr. Qandil, an agricultural engineer and former water minister, spoke about villages that he said he had visited in the rural province of Beni Suef, 70 miles south of Cairo, the capital. Video of the remarks posted on YouTube shows that several male and female listeners appeared uncomfortable as the prime minister spoke.
Women present for the Egyptian prime minister’s remarks blaming “ignorant” mothers’ unclean breasts for diarrhea in nursing infants appeared confused and uncomfortable.
The remarks have sparked controversy online and in Egypt’s raucous Arabic-language media. On Monday night, a talk show host on the independent Tahrir television network, Dina Abdel Fattah, asked her viewers, “Can you imagine, an Egyptian prime minister addressing a topic like that, while we have martyrs in the street, we have people being killed every day, we have entire provinces in a state of unrest?”
An Egyptian television host, Dina Abdel Fattah, attacked the prime minister for his comments blaming rural women’s personal hygiene for infant diarrhea.
On Twitter, several people agreed that it was odd for the prime minister to broach this subject in the midst of Egypt’s political crises. Others were shocked that Mr. Qandil, who holds a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, would argue that women’s personal hygiene could cause diarrhea.
