Rabat – Gender-based violence remains a prevalent issue in Morocco, where courts handle 17,000 cases of violence against women annually.
The director of criminal affairs at the Ministry of Justice, Hicham Melati, said that a small portion of the complaints are made against the parents of victims while a third of the cases are committed by third parties.
Melati spoke about gender-based violence during a conference last weekend in Guelmim, southern Morocco. He warned that the issue remains “worrying and raises several questions about the phenomenon of violence against women.”
Melati announced that the Ministry of Justice is developing the experience of care units in courts that provide social and legal services to victims of gender-based violence.
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Rights groups are vocal more than ever about gender-based violence, encouraging women to speak up and denounce such acts.
A report from December 2019 by Morocco’s High Commission for Planning (HCP) shared alarming statistics from a six-month survey.
The survey explored the circumstances and consequences of violence against women and girls.
Out of 13.4 million women aged between 15 and 74, the survey found that more than 7.6 million experienced at least one act of violence in the past year.
According to the HCP, women who are unemployed and have low education levels are the most affected by domestic violence.
Despite the official enactment of Law 103-13, criminalizing gender discrimination, the issue of gender violence alarmingly prevails.
Stephanie Willman Bordat, an international human rights lawyer, told Morocco World News that the law is “extremely short and it did not address any of the issues related to gender-based violence that Moroccan women and NGOs have been advocating for ten years.”
For Bordat, Law 103-13 is vague and does not put any specific measures in place to actually protect women who are subjected to violence.
