10 years after the Implementation of Morocco’s Moudawana: Experiences and Ways Forward

Rabat - On the occasion of the 10 years of the reformed Moroccan family code,  the Danish Center for Research and Information on Gender, Equality and Diversity Kvinfo, organized in November 2013,  the Family Code + 10: Experiences and Ways Forward Conference in Rabat, Morocco.  

The conference is part of the Danish-Moroccan bilateral project "Strengthening Women’s Rights and Access to Justice in the Moroccan Legal System.” Launched in 2007, this project is implemented by KVINFO in partnership with the Moroccan Ministry of Justice.

The two day event, the first of its kind in Morocco, provided an unprecedented opportunity to take stock of the impact of the implementation of the Family Code reforms throughout Morocco, and provide an assessment of the social and institutional barriers restricting women’s ability to exercise their rights under the family law, 10 years after its passage.

The program was met with strong interest, hosting diverse participants representing civil society organizations,  women’s rights advocates,  lawyers and judges, academics, international organizations and policy makers. The conference featured notable plenary and breakout sessions, including:

- The presentation of findings on the family code study: "The Implementation of Morocco’s 2004 Family Code Moudawana: Stock-Taking & Recommendations” conducted by Moroccan-American lawyer and member of the National Intergovernmental Commission on National Dialogue, Leila Hanafi.

- Working Groups on the role of the civil society in the implementation of the Family Code, over the last 10 years.

- The presentation of the Guide to Mediation in Family Courts and  a panel on the alignment of the Moroccan Family Code with  Islam and with International Law.

The revised personal status Code, the Moudawana, was adopted in January 2004, and passed into legislation in February 2004. Several important rights were secured for Moroccan women via the 2004 Moudawana, including the right to self-guardianship, the right to divorce, and the right to child custody.

However, despite the forward bounds the Moudawana brings to Moroccan women’s rights, it remains hindered by several hurdles as was agreed in the Conference sessions. During the stocktaking sessions of obstacles to the implementation of the Moudawana, the following were the key messages of participants:

Civil society organizations feel that gaps persist in terms of how family law is written into legislation and how family law is applied in practice, specifically pertaining to women’s access to justice. By law, as outlined in the Moudawana, there is no differentiation of access to justice among women. However, in practice, women in rural areas have much less access to justice than women in urban areas, as the Moudawana is limited mainly to urban areas.

There is also a paucity of government sponsored training for the judges and public officials to learn about the provisions of the Moudawana. These programs are usually led through national government initiatives or international donor agencies with significant positive results. The challenge is, however, scaling up these efforts so that all regions in Morocco benefit, as so far, it is mainly the large cities which are gaining from these programs.

In terms of recommendations to advance Women’s Access to Justice under the Moudawana, several suggestions ensued from the discussions including, but not limited to:  the urgent need for a strong move towards simplifying procedures in all family law matters, as well as promoting systems of alternative dispute resolution that are not only swifter and cheaper, but also which are more effective in attaining practical resolutions to problems.

Leila Hanafi’s study highlighted that the judiciary in particular plays a critical role in enforcing the provisions of the Moudawana as it has the ability to make the legal reforms a reality or alternatively to disregard the changes. At the same time, efforts at the grassroots level to educate citizens about their rights and responsibilities under the Family Code are still needed. While women’s rights groups and civil society actors work freely and effectively to promote gender equality and equal access to justice and have gained momentum in recent years, their efforts are often challenged by cultural conservatism.

In rural areas, particularly, there is little information on civil society groups in general, and no research has been carried out on the human, material and financial resources of the CSOs working with rural women. This requires a collaborative approach of a variety of actors (the government, media, educational institutions, and civil society groups).

There is no doubt that the enactment of the Moudawana marked a significant step forward in improving the legal status of women in Morocco, yet its application is still not in full effect. Thanks to programs like this, assessment opportunities to open a dialogue on the required steps to move the implementation of the Moudawana forward become a reality.