Feminist Organization Calls Upon Benkirane to Consider Gender Parity in Next Government

Casablanca – A Moroccan feminist organization addresses an open letter to Abdelilah Benkirane urging him to take the constitutional principle of parity into account in the formation of the next government.

The Movement for Parity Democracy (MDP), a feminist group consisting of numerous feminist organizations, called upon the Head of Government to respect gender parities in ministerial portfolios of the next government.

The open letter was addressed to Abdelilah Benkirane on October 25, 2016.

According to the news source Telquel, MDP spoke out about the representation of women in the previous term (2011 – 2016) but only one woman was initially entrusted with the mission of a Minister.

Later in the same term, three additional female ministers, Hakima El Haite, Mbarka Bouaida and Soumia Benkhaldoun, joined Bassima El Hakkaoui, who was appointed as the Minister of Solidarity, Women, Family and Social Development.

The 19^th Article of the Moroccan Constitution provides that the parity between men and women is ensured and guaranteed by the state:

The man and the woman enjoy, in equality, the rights and freedoms of civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental character, enounced in this Title and in the other provisions of the Constitution, as well as in the international conventions and pacts duly ratified by Morocco and this, with respect for the provisions of the Constitution, of the constants [constantes] of the Kingdom and of its laws.

The State works for the realization of parity between men and women.

An Authority for parity and the struggle against all forms of discrimination is created, to this effect.

Led by the Democratic Association of Women in Morocco, MDP was founded in 2006 after a series of debates between numerous of feminist associations, democratic associations, and human rights organizations in Morocco.