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Thursday, 10 August, 2000, 21:56 GMT 22:56 UK
Eyewitness: Moroccan women's misery
![]() Moroccan women demand their rights
The BBC's Frank Gardner reports from Casablanca on the plight of Moroccan women whom the law gives men huge powers over.
On a Friday night at Amnesia, a nightclub in the capital of Rabat, it is hard to believe that you are not in Europe. The drinks flow fast and the dance floor is alive with scantily dressed Moroccan couples. The women who come to the club arrive in BMWs and speak three languages. However, they are the lucky few. Illiteracy
A British charity worker, Nicholas Hughes, has seen first-hand how their poverty has laid them open to abuse. "The classic situation is a girl who leaves her family home at the age of six or seven because her family needs the money," he explains. "She comes to work in a big city as a housemaid. She reaches the age of maybe 15 or 16 and the first bloke that she meets who promises to take her away from this awful situation that she's in, she believes him because she wants to."
"She will sleep with him. She'll become pregnant. He will abandon her. She'll lose her job and she'll be rejected by her family and she can be followed by the law for prostitution." Rape In a hostel for single mothers in Casablanca, I met Rachida, who is eight months pregnant. At 16, she looks twice her age, and her wrinkled hands are calloused and chapped.
She was not prepared for what came next. "It was the afternoon and I was sent out to the shops," she says. "The streets were empty when a man came up and put a knife against me. He forced me to follow him to a room where he raped me." "When I learned I was pregnant three months later, I was rejected by my family and society" "Only God knows what will become of me now." Abandoned babies When Rachida's baby is born, at least it will have a temporary home in a crèche run by the Swiss-funded charity, Insaf. However, with tens of thousands of families sending their daughters to the cities each year, the police are finding abandoned babies almost every day.
However, as Nicholas Hughes explains, their society is not yet ready to accept the consequences. "I think the root of the problem in Morocco is that it's in a phase of transition from being a more traditional Islamic society to a more open Western society," he says. "So the normal support mechanisms of the family and the community are starting to break down, particularly with the fact that the woman needs to go out and work, to earn money for her family."
Many married women say that they are treated unfairly. Under Morocco's family law, even a high-profile businesswoman needs her husband's permission to travel, while a man can divorce his wife whenever he chooses. Islamist influence The government was hoping to put women on a more equal footing. In March, 40,000 women demonstrated in favour of reform. However, a massive counter-demonstration by conservative Islamists put government plans back on the shelf. Islamist spokeswoman Nadia Yassine explains why.
"They want to let the West impose its ideas on our culture. We are all for the emancipation of women, but we want it to be done along Islamic lines." That, say women activists, means keeping women as second-class citizens in their own homes. Government dilemma Yet the power of the Islamists puts the government in a difficult position. It wants to bring the country closer to Europe, which means giving Moroccan women more rights. However, the government is clearly afraid of upsetting the Islamists who have deep-rooted support amongst the poor.
"The government looks at it on the basis that there is a great deal lacking when it comes to women here, especially in the countryside, in the areas of education, information and health, as well as social and economic rights," he says. "So the government is busy drawing up a series of measures to tackle all four areas." Tackling poverty and illiteracy is a goal that everyone can agree on. But in this still traditional North African country, society is deeply divided when it comes to the status of women. While the argument continues, more and more women are suffering in silence.
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