Feature: 42 indebted women enjoy post-Ramadan feast after being pardoned

"After six years in prison, I will spend Fast-breaking Feast (Eid al-Fitr) with my family," said 63-year-old Sayida Aly Ibrahim in a voice mixed with tears and joy.

"I was sentenced for 10 years in jail after failing to repay 10,000 Egyptian pounds (nearly 1,280 U.S. dollars) I was indebted for my neighbors," she told Xinhua.

"I was a vegetable seller and I had to buy medicine on regular bases for my sick and very old husband," she said, adding that by the time the debts were accumulated, her neighbors raised a lawsuit against her.

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned 42 indebted women on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr on Thursday.

The decree comes under the campaign "Egypt without debts," which applies to those who failed to repay loans for family expenses.

According to the penal code, debtors may be released from prison only if their debts are paid, or the person they owe pardons them.

In June, al-Sisi pardoned 48 women under the same campaign.

There is no clear number of women unable to repay loans in Egypt.

But according to Misr El-Khir Charity Foundation which has managed to pay the debts of 23,000 people, over the past five years, ten of thousands of women fail to meet their payment commitments and end up in prison.

Inside a huge marquee, dozens of family members of the pardoned ladies have gathered to celebrate their release, in the presence of Lylah Elxander, minister of developing slums, and several officials from Al-Azhar and the interior ministry.

The pardoned ladies who were released on Thursday were between 30-60 years old.

Zaynab Ashour and her two daughters were also jailed for signing six checks without balance to pay their debts, in a country where some 40 percent of its 90 million population live under the poverty line.

Sitting on a table, Hanaa, one of the daughters, was holding her nine months baby to whom she gave birth in jail.

"This is the first time that my child breathes the air of freedom outside the prisons," said Hanaa.

Ousamh Al-Azhary, al-Sisi's advisor for social development, said the president's initiative aims to release all the indebted women by the end of 2015.

He said 1,100 cases have been settled so far, which prevented more than 1,850 people from entering the prison. Endit