Morocco Shares Its Experience in Reducing Violence Against Women

Casablanca – The Moroccan experience in caring for women victims of abuse was the highlight of a regional conference on violence against women held in Amman on Saturday and Sunday.

The Euro-Mediterranean Feminist Initiative hosted the conference in collaboration with the Jordanian Ministerial Committee for Women’s Empowerment.

A delegate from the Ministry of Solidarity, Social Integration, and the Family, as well as members from a variety of civil society organizations, the National Council for Human Rights, and the judiciary, represented Morocco at the conference.

The attendees noted Morocco’s recent acceptance of two optional protocols pertaining to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Morocco’s delegation urged participants to follow the Moroccan model for preventing violence against women and caring for victims of abuse.

Since the beginning of 2021, Morocco’s General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) has reported 61,388 instances involving all types of violence against women in the North African country. 97% of domestic violence cases the DGSN has handled in recent months have been prosecuted, noted the directorate.

In a statement to Morocco’s State media MAP, Soukaina El Yabouri, representative of the Ministry of Solidarity, Social Integration, and the Family, emphasized the political determination to combat violence against women.

She spoke of efforts to expand and revise the Moroccan legal arsenal regarding gendered violence. Morocco’s field of care for domestic violence, she said, “is quite advanced and entails an integrated and comprehensive approach to revising, updating, and introducing new regulations.”

El Yabouri said Morocco is one of the most advanced nations in terms of developing women’s rights, equality, and gender, owing to the issuing of the Family Code and the acceleration of legislation.

“New laws have been routinely updated, revised, and added since the code’s issuance,” she added.

The Moroccan official went on to say that Morocco is one of the few nations that has established an action plan for the implementation of United Nations Resolution 1325 for peace and security, which respects the gender perspective and strives to build peace and security mediators.

Economic empowerment is a necessary component of breaking the cycle of violence.

Morocco is working on public policies and mechanisms to implement laws and strategies, such as the National Observatory of Violence and National Committees to care for women victims of violence, as well as programs for the economic empowerment of women, El Yabouri said.

During the Amman meeting, participants launched the regional indicator on violence against women and girls for 2021, as part of the European Union-funded regional program called “Fighting Violence Against Women and Girls in the Southern Mediterranean.”

The indicator intends to provide worldwide documentation of laws, public policies, and services linked to violence against women and girls. It also aims to support the implementation of the women’s, security, and peace agenda and its alignment with international laws and procedures to advance women’s rights.

The conference also advocated for the adoption of comprehensive measures and laws to address violence against women and girls, as well as to enable women to live free of violence and prejudice.

It concluded with attendees vowing to further discuss more concrete policy recommendations in terms of combating violence against women and girls for the next ministerial meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean in Spain next October.