Gender Matters: Women As Actors of Change and Sustainable Development in Morocco
ISSUE BRIEF 06.19.20 Gender Matters: Women as Actors of Change and Sustainable Development in Morocco Yamina El Kirat El Allame, Ph.D., Professor, Faculty of Letters & Human Sciences, Mohammed V University In comparison to other countries in Against Women helped encourage the the Middle East and North Africa, the Moroccan feminist movement, leading to Moroccan government has implemented a the launch of feminist journals including considerable number of reforms to improve Lamalif and Thamanya Mars in 1983. In the women’s rights, including a gender quota 1990s, women mobilized around the issue of for parliamentary elections, a revision of reforming the Mudawana. In 1992, a petition the Family Code (the Mudawana), a reform was signed by one million Moroccans, and of the constitution, a law allowing women in 1999, large demonstrations were held in to pass nationality to their children, an Rabat and Casablanca. The reforms to the amendment of the rape law, and a law Mudawana were officially adopted in 2004. criminalizing gender-based violence. The 20 February Movement, associated Despite these reforms, women's rights and with the regional uprisings known as the gender equality have not improved; most “Arab Spring,”1 began with the twenty- of the changes exist on paper, and the legal year-old anonymous journalist student, measures have not been implemented well. Amina Boughalbi. Her message—“I am Moroccan and I will march on the 20th of February because I want freedom and HISTORY OF MOROCCAN WOMEN’S equality for all Moroccans”—mobilized INVOLVEMENT IN SUSTAINABLE several thousand, mainly young, Moroccan Moroccan women have DEVELOPMENT men and women.
[Show full text]