A little-publicized form of marriage is gaining ground in certain regions of Morocco, according to a program broadcast on the Al Aoula channel. This is marriage on debt recognition.
Hannan Serroukh, a Moroccan living in Barcelona, managed to escape a forced marriage in 1987 when she was only 14 years old. Since then, she has been fighting against this scourge that is plaguing Spanish society.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Morocco is supporting a global campaign to fight child marriage. The day of the celebration of Valentine’s Day was chosen as the starting point for this drama affecting 650 million women and girls worldwide.
Although the law has prohibited customary (or so-called "Fatiha") marriages, the practice is still popular in Moroccan society, especially in rural areas. Associations continue to carry out awareness campaigns to protect women and children who are victims of these marriages that have become a real Lernaean Hydra.
In Morocco, 32% of married, divorced or widowed women have been victims of early marriage .
In Morocco , early marriages continue to jeopardize the future of children, especially in the rural world where this rate has reached 27.4% compared to 15.2% in urban areas. According to the National Observatory of Human Development (ONDH), among women aged 18 and over, 19.5% concluded their first marriage before the age of 18, compared to only 1.5% among men, or 13 times more.
It is a very sad story that happened on Saturday in Stehat, a village near Chefchaouen . A 17-year-old teenager committed suicide by hanging, while she was in the midst of preparing for her wedding.
The Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS) has just tabled a bill to regulate the marriage of minors in Morocco. It thus proposes to prohibit any marriage before the age of 18, a situation provided for in exceptional cases by the Family Code.
As part of the fight against violence against women and girls, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is joining forces with Shama, the first 100% Moroccan female robot, to launch the global campaign against this scourge.
Social networks and other information channels have been flooded with reactions disapproving of the resurgence of pedophilia, rape and murder of children. But Jaouad Mabrouki, a psychiatrist, researcher and expert in the psychoanalysis of Moroccan and Arab society, calls on Moroccans to focus on a drama that is playing out with the complicity of society: the marriage of minors.
The court in Nîmes last Tuesday sentenced a father and his partner to 18 months in prison with probation each, in a case of forced marriage organized in Morocco.
A Moroccan residing in France and his partner will appear, starting Tuesday, September 8, before the criminal court, for a case of forced marriage.