Casablanca- After the commotion caused by the suicide of a 15-year-old in Casablanca after she was subjected to bullying, another young girl committed suicide last Friday in Fez.
According to news reports, the young girl’s parents decided to force their daughter to drop out of school in order to get married.
According to Al Akhbar , the 17-year-old girl repeatedly begged her parents to revoke their decision to marry her and put an end to her studies. Seeing that her parents were intent on forcing her to marry, she decided to end her life by hanging herself.
“The girl was suffering from major psychological pressure because of her family as she refused to leave school and marry, but she was forced to do so,” said Abderrahman Bendiab, the coordinator of the Fez-Meknes branch of Touche pas Mon Enfant (Don’t Touch My Child).
“The city police have opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of the girl’s death,” he added.
Although the new Moroccan Family Code, which was passed in 2004, elevated the minimum age of marriage to 18 years, the law is often not enforced. The law gives judges ample discretion to decide whether an underage girl can be married or not.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the judges accept marriage applications involving underage girls. According to a TV program aired in France 24 in January 2013, 90% of applications for the marriage of underage girls were accepted in 2011. During the same year, the number of underage girls who were married reached 42,000.
Edited by Jessica Rohan
©Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed
