REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, CAIRO -- "My mother is dead and my father is a street shoe polisher, so I sell tissue packs at the neighborhood' s coffee shops to help with home expenses," said Asmaa, an 11-year-old vendor from one of Egypt's Giza impoverished neighborhoods.

Asmaa has been moving from a local coffee shop to another at Boulak el-Dakrour slum, with untidy hair and unclean gray pullover, red training pants and a plastic pair of slippers, trying to sell to those busy talking, watching TV or playing dominoes or backgammon some tissue packs to go back home with a few pounds (around one U.S. dollar or so) at the end of the day.

"I am in the fourth grade of elementary school and I wish one day we live better and I dream of becoming a doctor when I grow up, " said the desperate small girl who has four younger brothers and sisters to help.

The little vendor is just one of 16.7 million Egyptian children who are struggling with poverty, according to a recent report from the state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).