Mostly set in Qanater women’s prison (an infamous real-life prison in Cairo), Segn El Nesa, provides real insight into life behind bars with powerful and compelling stories of female prisoners, their guards and those outside.

The realistic story focusses on Ghalia (Egyptian actress Nelly Karim), a reluctant and naïve new prison guard, and her good-for-nothing boyfriend, Saber, played by Ahmed Dawoud. Ghalia’s blind love for Saber will lead to her fall and to her becoming an inmate herself, obsessed with revenge.

The numerous subplots taking place in the different wards of the prison (Fraud, Narcotics, Homicide, Vice) feature all kinds of women and their respective back stories: Aziza (Salwa Khattab), a drug baron and the prison’s matriarch; Dalal (Tunisian actress Dorra Zarrouk), a prostitute who has become a successful nightclub owner; Reda (Rouby) the young maid from the country who has killed her rich employers’ daughter; Zeinat (Nesreem Amin), the prostitute who dies in prison mourned by all; Hayat (Dunia Maher), the mentally ill housewife who killed her children and is executed in the prison; Ashgan (Heba Abdelghany) on death row for killing her husband when he was about to rape their daughter.

This very powerful and often gritty social drama, in which the women are wonderfully portrayed by an amazing cast, might lead viewers to examine and perhaps also change their minds about women behind bars.

This series was a real Ramadan hit in 2014, considered by many as the best series of the year, and established Nelly Karim as one of the most important Egyptian actresses.