“Mudawana kan tsana (Family Code, I’ll wait for you)”, reads the motto of the campaign launched on social networks such as Instagram by feminist organizations and civil society groups in Morocco defending the reform of legislation that still tolerates polygamy, marriage of minors or discrimination in family succession that affects women, who inherit 50% less than their male brothers. “We will do everything necessary to preserve the values of Islam in the family, including a national march with a million people,” replied former Prime Minister Abdelilá Benkirán, leader of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD). ), in power between 2011 and 2021.
On the eve of the announcement next week of the scope of the Mudawana reform project, presented by the Government at the initiative of the king, who sees in the revision of the norm a legacy of his reign, the tectonic fault between tradition and modernity that Moroccan society is going through threatens to deepen. On the 20th anniversary of the first amendment to the Family Code – which marked a milestone in Morocco by granting women the right to request a divorce, among other advances – Mohamed VI presents himself as the main promoter of the measure, when available. to celebrate a quarter of a century on the throne this year.
In one of his official speeches, the monarch of the Alawite dynasty raised in July 2022 the need to overcome the legal loopholes of the Mudawana. The Government of Prime Minister Aziz Ajanuch let time pass, in view of the rejection expressed by conservative religious sectors, until the king set last September a period of six months, which expires next Tuesday, for the presentation of the bill. . As Commander of the Believers, with the powers of a religious leader, Mohamed VI laid the foundations for the legislative review under this maxim: “I cannot authorize what God has prohibited, but neither can I prevent what the Almighty has permitted.”
With the support of progressive parties, feminist organizations hope that a new vision of the Family Code will prevail. “We hope for a profound reform that puts an end to issues that should have already been resolved in 2004, such as underage marriage, where exceptions to the rule persist. It must be categorically prevented,” says Nuzha Skali, who was Minister of Social Development and Family between 2007 and 2011, and an MP for the Party of Progress and Socialism when the Mudawana was first amended.
Current legislation prohibits marriage with minors under 18 years of age, although it allows judges to approve that a girl can marry an adult man. In 2023, 14,197 requests for judicial authorization were submitted in Morocco. A year earlier, there were 20,097. In both years, more than two-thirds of the applications were accepted, according to data from the Attorney General’s Office. “As with polygamy, which the 2004 law limited to special cases, there are also exceptions, although not as extensive as in underage marriage,” warns veteran feminist Skali.
For former Prime Minister Benkirán, who at the beginning of the month demonstrated the strength of the main Islamist party in the Maghreb country in Casablanca, the Mudawana reform is due to a “foreign plot to turn Moroccans into Europeans.” “We enjoy autonomy [religiosa]”But it must be defended with popular resistance,” he warned, before attacking the National Human Rights Council, a state body, for not maintaining consensus on Islam in society.
The leader of the PJD maintained that there is no “scientific proof” that a 15-year-old person is a minor for the purposes of marriage, and defended that preventing them from getting married can lead to “more harmful situations, such as abortion,” according to with information from the digital portal Hespress. On multiple marriages, he insisted that it was not an “urgent issue.” The Mudawana vetoed polygamy 20 years ago, a practice reduced to less than 2% of Moroccan households, unless it is approved by the first wife and has judicial endorsement.
In the midst of the political and religious debate, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (EESC, for its acronym in French) has confirmed that underage marriage has negative effects on the health of those affected, since they face pregnancies without being fully developed, and in his education, by not completing his studies; In addition, he has warned that it hinders the economic and social development of the country. The EESC is one of the official bodies that, together with parties, unions, associations and experts, have appeared in some of the 130 consultative sessions convened by the commission in charge of revising the Family Code to gather social opinion.
“A country ready for change”
“The king proposed a broad participatory approach to adapt legislation to social changes and harmonize it with the 2011 Constitution and the international conventions ratified by Morocco. But in every process of change, resistance occurs, especially when it affects people’s privacy,” acknowledges former Family Minister Skali. “There is a current that goes against the meaning of history that clings to the sharia (Muslim religious jurisprudence), although people’s lives evolve. Women work, they are the majority in healthcare, in education, and they contribute to supporting families. The reform of the Family Code must adapt the law to reality,” argues the former progressive deputy, “and the country is already ready for change.”
Although it is an administrative measure without the rank of law, applied first in Moroccan consulates such as the one in Madrid, the authorization recently approved by the powerful ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs, which depend directly on the king, so that mothers being able to apply for their children’s passport without the father’s permission seems to suggest that the Mudawana reform will bring some progress for women.
Feminist organizations also highlight the urgency in reforming succession legislation that is in contradiction with the Constitution, approved after the wave of democratic marches in 2011 that emerged following the Arab Spring and the international conventions to which Morocco has acceded. In current legislation, if there are male siblings, the daughters inherit half as much as they do. If there are none, they are obliged to share the assets with uncles or cousins from the paternal side, who can even deprive them of the family assets. In the allocation of guardianship and custody of children in the event of marital separation, Moroccan women continue to be discriminated against compared to men.
The clash between urban and rural Morocco, between modern and traditional, is experienced every day in the streets of cities and towns. The economic development experienced in the last 25 years contrasts with extreme inequality. The weight of traditional values and Islam in a country where the head of state belongs to a dynasty that declares itself a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad hampers the progress of the reforms. The most conservative political sectors, such as the Islamists who ruled in Rabat for a decade, wield the immutability of religious-based norms on the family to try to recover the political hegemony that they lost at the polls three years ago. Benkirán, its leader, now preaches that “the excessive regulation of marital relations, such as the admission of complaints of rape within marriage, threaten to disturb family harmony.”
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