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Rabat- The Democratic Association of Moroccan Women, a feminist organization, advocates in its recent report for gender parity in senior official appointments. The organization’s call to action supplements the initiative “Parity Now,” launched in October 2020.
“Where is gender parity in the appointment of high government positions?” asks the Democratic Association of Moroccan Women (ADFM) in its latest report, released on January 12.
The feminist organization considers that the appointment of senior officials is still rooted in a “regressive approach” that consecrates the “systematic exclusion” of women from decision-making positions. In fact, the current government only allocated 137 positions to women out of 1,160 senior appointments. This translates to only 11.8% of total high-level government appointments since 2012, explains the report.
Despite these “shameful figures,” the report continues, the government did not plan any measures to remedy the situation. The organization laments the lack of any concrete institutionalized action to encourage women’s access to executive positions.
The organization, therefore, calls for adopting effective regulatory measures to improve gender parity. The report recalls Article 19 of the Moroccan constitution and its supplementing laws, which support the inclusion of women in positions of responsibility. The law the report cites states the equality of opportunity, merit, and transparency as the basis for the assignment of responsibility.
Along the same line, the collective Parity Now (Parité Maintenant) launched on October 15, 2020 a campaign to collect signatures for a petition to propose a law on gender parity. The proposed law aims to create a legal framework to implement gender parity in professional, cultural, social, and economic spheres.
The proposal targets public and private bodies, including state institutions, private companies, and national and regional authorities. It advocates for “positive discrimination” in favor of women. This refers to a set of policies and practices to deliberately increase the representation of women in areas in which they were excluded in the past.
The collective received wide support from public figures. Notably, Islamic feminist scholar, Asma Lamrabet, artist Latefa Ahrare, and politician Omar Balafrej voiced approval of the initiative. Parity Now collected over 13,000 signatures and has submitted the proposal to Parliament for review. Parliament has 40 days to study and issue a first opinion on the proposed law.
