Rabat- Rahmouna Ziani from Meknes was recently appointed as the King’s Public Prosecutor at the Commercial Court of Appeals in Fez, making her the first woman to hold the position in Morocco.
On Monday, May 14, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary organized Ziani’s appointment ceremony, which was supervised by Head of the Supreme Council of Accounts Driss Jettou in the presence of the Crown Prosecutor, Mohamed Abd Nabaoui. A number of judicial officers and representatives from Fez and Meknes’ courts of first Instance and courts of appeals also attended.
Ziani graduated from the Higher Magistrates’ Institute back in 1979 and has worked as Deputy Prosecutor in Meknes, Khemisset, and Fez’s Courts of Appeals and First Instance until her promotion to Public Prosecutor.
On the occasion of Ziani’s promotion, Aicha Ait El Hajj and Kalthoum Tawab were also appointed as deputy prosecutors of the court of first instance in Casablanca and the commercial court of appeals in Meknes.
In recent years, women have succeeded in achieving positions that were previously only help by men i, such as police officers and parliamentary positions. However, they only represent two percent in the upper house of parliament and 17 percent in the lower house, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The same source revealed, based on 2013 statistics, that Morocco ranked eighth in the Arab World and 107th worldwide for the number of women elected to the legislature.
Women’s Empowerment in Morocco
Several Moroccan organizations, such as IKHAE Fraternité Association – a non-profit organization that seeks to empower women through educational programs and helps them gain financial independence – are calling for greater gender equality, including the integration of women into the economic and political spheres,.
In turn, the government has made a number of legal amendments to enhance the presence of women in positions of employment that have traditionally been occupied by men exclusively.
Read Also: Islamic Feminist Asma Lamrabet Publishes ‘Women and Men in the Qur’an’ in the US
In January, King Mohammed VI opened up adoul (official public notary) positions to women for the first time.
In Morocco, a public notary typically handles paperwork concerned with property sales and marriage commercial contracts. These duties were previously carried out by religious men certified by the government to draft marriage papers and manage inheritance matters.
On Sunday, May 6, more than 7,000 women took the admission test to become public notaries for the first time in the kingdom.
Nevertheless, seven out of 10 men (70 percent) in the country believe that women belong in the home, according to a survey conducted by the UN, involving 2,889 households.
