Feminists in Morocco unite against polygamy in the reform of the Family Code

As the 20th anniversary of the reform of the Mudawana or Family Code – which marked a modernising milestone in Morocco by granting women the right to seek divorce, among other advances – approaches, King Mohammed VI, who will celebrate 25 years on the throne next year, has called on the government to present a draft revision of the legislation by 26 March. Despite prohibitions established in 2004, legal exceptions to personal status discriminate against Moroccan women by tolerating residual polygamy, which affects 2 per cent of marriages, and underage marriages. Women also continue to lose the right of guardianship of their minor children in the event of separation from their husbands and their inheritance rights to their brothers, and even to their uncles and cousins, are restricted. In the face of the forthcoming reform of the Mudawana, Moroccan feminist organizations have made a common front against the veto proposed by conservative and religious sectors reluctant to modify rules that they consider to be divinely inspired.

Forums such as the Foundations of Feminism, held last weekend in Rabat, have taken place in Morocco since 26 September, when Mohammed VI gave the government of Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Ajanuch six months to present a proposal to reform the Family Code. The monarch of the Alawite dynasty had already raised the need to revise the Mudawana in a speech to the nation in July 2022, but the Executive preferred to wait for the willingness of royal arbitration to be manifested in view of the rejection expressed by the Justice and Development Party (PJD), the Islamist formation that headed the government between 2011 and 2021.

The Association for the Promotion of the Culture of Equality has organised the first edition of the conference on feminism with associations, professionals and experts who debated in Rabat around the question: "What reform of the Family Code do we want?". Journalist Aicha Zaimi Sajri, 57, who is in charge of the organization, specifies that the forum has aimed to "serve as a bridge between the generations of the Moroccan feminist movement, the historical group, which was hardened in the mobilizations of the nineties of the last century, which preceded the reform of the Mudawana of 2004, and the young activists. professionals active in the digital protest campaigns of recent years".

Journalist Aicha Zaimi Sajri, organizer of the conference The Foundations of Feminism in Morocco, on Saturday 16 in Rabat, in an image provided by the organization.

The Association for the Promotion of the Culture of Equality aspires to present, "from a progressive profile", the conclusions of the debates of The Foundations of Feminism. She will formulate them before a commission made up of the Ministry of Justice and judicial associations, which is collecting proposals from parties, NGOs and civil society to present a project to reform the Family Code, says Sajri, founder of the magazine Femmes de Moroc (Women of Morocco), which three decades ago gave feminism a voice for the first time in the Maghreb country.

Loopholes in the 2004 legislation, which was born "obsolete", according to feminist associations, undermined the effectiveness of a reform that set a precedent in Muslim countries. Like Amir the Moomin or Commander of the Believers, in his powers as a religious leader, Mohammed VI has laid the foundations for legislative revision with this maxim: "I cannot authorize what God has forbidden, but neither can I prevent what the Most High has authorized." In conclusion, he has asked the Islamic ulema or clerical experts to determine what are the prescriptions on the family contained in the Koran, which inspires the Sharia or religious law in a country where Islam is the state religion. But it also calls on them to expunge from the legal text the empties of religious tradition for centuries. As the writer and scholar of Islamic theology Asma Lamrabet argues, these are impositions introduced by the jurisprudence of Muslim clerics, without basis in the Koran. The King stressed that the Family Code "must be adapted to the evolution of society".

Parental Guardianship

Nuzha Skali, 73, was among the oldest attendees at the feminist forum in Rabat. Minister of Social Development and Family between 2007 and 2011, and deputy for the Party of Progress and Socialism (former Communist Party) when the Mudawana was amended in 2004, she is the living memory of Moroccan feminism. "The reforms of the first decade of Mohammed VI's reign were culminated in the 2011 Constitution, which enshrined equality between men and women. But her 2022 speech came after a decade of stagnation (PJD governments between 2011 and 2021), in which a misogynistic discourse has been established in Morocco," defends this historic leader, who participated in the founding of the Democratic Association of Women of Morocco. "Society has evolved a lot in 20 years, the age of marriage has been delayed and now men marry, on average, at 32, and women, at 27."

The current regulations on paternal guardianship may prevent separated women from travelling abroad with their children if they do not have the written permission of their ex-husband to present them at the border. "And, above all, it is necessary to reform a succession legislation that is in contradiction with the Constitution and the international conventions ratified by Morocco," adds former minister Skali. If there are male brothers, daughters inherit only half as much as men. If there are none, according to the tradition of the Taasib (male line of agnation) they are obliged to share the property with uncles or cousins, who may even dispossess them of the family patrimony.

The issues of inheritance and joint guardianship and custody now seem to have serious potential to be reformed for the benefit of women, according to Moroccan feminist organizations. "We put forward a platform of maximums knowing that we will not get all our demands accepted," admits Sujri, the organizer of the forum held in Rabat.

In the opposite vein of the predominant discourse in the feminist debate, the Justice and Development Party openly declares itself in favour of the marriage of minors "for social reasons". One of its leaders, Mustafa Azami, warns that the party's principles "are based on Islamic law." The secretary general of the PJD, former Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkiran, has accused the feminist movement of representing only "Frenchified women disconnected from the social reality of Morocco", demanding a total ban on polygamy and underage marriage. "They live in the clouds, and they belong to a bourgeois elite in a comfortable economic situation." At the luxury Sofitel hotel in Rabat, where the feminist conference was held, there were hardly any hijabs or turbans on the heads of the attendees, among whom French was the lingua franca.

Current legislation prohibits marriage to minors (up to the age of 18), although it allows judges to authorize a girl to marry an adult man. In 2022, more than 20,000 applications for child marriage were registered in Morocco. Two-thirds of them (13,652) were accepted by the judges, according to the annual report of the Attorney General's Office.

The 2004 Mudawana also banned polygamy, a practice reduced to 2% of Moroccan households, unless approved by the first wife. There are men, however, who resort to concubinage with another woman. When they have a child, they go to court to authorize the second marriage in order to recognize paternity. Divorce is usually the alternative for the opposing spouse.

Lawyer Laila Slassi, head of an NGO that helps women who suffer sexual violence, on Saturday 16 in Rabat, during the conference The Foundations of Feminism in Morocco. C. S.

Towards a compromise solution

At the feminist forum in Rabat, Laila Slassi, a 39-year-old lawyer trained in France and founder of the Massaktach (I don't shut up) collective that has specialized since 2018 in the defense of women victims of sexual violence, represents a generation of activists who are fluent on social networks, and in some cases, as influencers"We hand out whistles for women who feel harassed when walking alone on the streets," she recalls. "In Morocco, the penalties for sexual assault are high, up to 30 years in the case of a minor, but they are not applied in the judicial reality," questions this lawyer.

Cases such as that of an 11-year-old girl, raped by three men for months in a village in Morocco and threatened with death if she denounced her attackers, did not come to light until her pregnancy revealed her ordeal. In a first trial, the defendants received a paltry sentence of just two years in prison. The popular indication led a higher court to rectify and punish the guilty with between 10 and 20 years in prison. "She was lucky enough to have feminist activists take up her case," says Slassi, "but unfortunately, these are common sentences in Moroccan courts."

"In addition to updating the Family Code, it is time to reform the Penal Code as well," he warns. Two-thirds of sexual violence cases that reach the courts involve minors. "This means that women of legal age file few complaints," laments the lawyer and activist. "If they do and their case is shelved, they risk criminal prosecution for extramarital sex, punishable by up to one year in jail."

The discrimination faced by women in Morocco has its roots in an era when men were the sole breadwinners of families. Despite the low rate of female employment, at present, about one-fifth of households are supported only by women, and up to one-third of families depend on women's labour to survive. "It is inevitable that the new Family Code will end up being a compromise text," admits Slassi, "in view of the fractures in society, in a country with enormous differences between cities and rural areas, where equality and justice are not guaranteed for all women."

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