Combating Violence against Moroccan Women

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue VIII, August 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Combating Violence against Moroccan Women

Halima Tahiri
Soultan Moulay Slimane University, MOROCCO

Abstract: Although many efforts have been done to eradicate violence against women, and many positive improvement in policies, practices, and activities to support and protect women all over the world, violence against women in all its various forms is still spreading and posing a threat and danger to women and girls in all countries. All over the world, women victims of violence, particularly Moroccan illiterate women and low-income women, have little access to justice and they experience oppressive and marginalized treatment from the Moroccan state.
However, the general goal of this ethnographic study is to generate a basic understanding and knowledge that can be used as an essential means to improve current policies, practices, and legislation in force in Morocco regarding the protection and promotion of gender equality and women’s rights. This ethnographic study narrates the story of eleven women victims of different types of violence including physical, domestic, sexual, and psychological violence, to display the urgent need for the Moroccan state to implement responsive facilities and services for those women who lack knowledge and money, to provide effective and appropriate specific training to the state agents for the victims of sexual assault based on Moroccan law and legislation that protect women’s rights instead of acting on personal attitudes and opinions, last but not least to strengthen the monitoring of a framework to record and observe the implementation of the measures and reforms taken by the Moroccan state to combat violence against women.

I. INTRODUCTION

After a long struggle and debates by women’s rights organizations, Morocco ratified the new law No 103-13 to combat violence against women. This new law defines violence against women as any action, physical or moral, based on race and causing harm to women, whether physical, moral, sexual, or economic and it encompasses several forms of abuse. The violence that can be practiced against women in different contexts includes home, street, workplace, or elsewhere (Elkhalidi, 2018). However, overall, activists and feminist movements said that this law did not address several issues to ensure that all victims are protected from all forms of violence and to monitor that the police, public prosecutors, and judges do their jobs concerning domestic violence cases and work to fund women’s shelters.

Read More