A coalition of associations recommends removing the articles of the law that allow marriage before 18 years.
Wednesday 25 November 2020 – 18:10
The “Dunia Coalition to Prevent minor girls Marriage” recommended, today, Wednesday, in Rabat, the deletion of Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Family Code that allow the assigned family judge to authorize the marriage of a boy and a girl under the eligibility age set at 18 years.
The coalition, which includes ten associations, stressed, in a pleading memorandum, “the necessity of adopting a comprehensive national policy / strategy to eliminate the marriage of minors in Morocco, covering all sectors concerned, and making 18 years an irreversible gain, while deleting Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Family Code. Which allows the family judge in charge of marriage to authorize the marriage of a boy and a girl below the legal age specified in the Moroccan Totalitarian of the article law 18 according to Article 19 of the same law.
The memo, which was presented during a press conference on the occasion of the official launch of the coalition’s work and coinciding with the international days related to the elimination of gender-based violence, which extends from November 25 to December 10 of each year, stresses the importance of the state’s contribution and its institutions in raising the awareness of society in all its spectrums of the risks that can be The consequence of the persistence of the phenomenon of child marriage, for example the compulsion of free education / vocational training up to 18 years of age, allowing children to continue to advance in their level and develop their skills that confront their economic and social future.
It is also about developing a new holistic approach that takes into account the social and economic aspects of families from different regions of Morocco, especially in villages and remote places, and also among the needy and poor families in urban areas.
In the presentation of the defense memorandum, the president of the (Al-Nakhil) Association, Raji Al-Hussein, said that according to the national study on the marriage of minors in Morocco, which was completed by the Association for Rights and Justice in 2019, the marriage of minors to Al-Fatiha represents a rate of 10.79 percent regardless of any legal recognition. He added that according to the Ministry of Justice data, 319,177 permits were granted to marry minors between 2009 and 2018.
“According to a study conducted by the World Bank in 2015, marriage of children in general and minors in particular has dire effects and consequences such as school wastage, early pregnancy, not to mention marital violence and infant mortality,” he added.
In this regard, Al-Raji considered that the marriage of minors or their permission to marry is considered “harmful traditional practices that must be abandoned, because they are inconsistent with international conventions, especially the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
For her part, the head of the Free Hands Association and a member of the Dunya Coalition to Prevent Child Marrying, Leila Amelie, highlighted that child marriage is a phenomenon that unfortunately still exists despite the efforts made to put an end to it, adding that it falls within the framework of violence against women.
In a statement to the press, she emphasized that “all children should enjoy all their rights without discrimination, especially the right to education and health. Therefore, we stress the removal of Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Family Code.
The Dunia Coalition pledges to combat the marriage of girls under 18 years of age by advocating for the abolition of Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Family Code, and the harmonization of national legislation with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
To this end, the coalition adopts a human rights reference that is based on the basic values of dignity, freedom, equality and justice in the framework of human rights in general and the rights of the child in particular.
The coalition includes all of the associations represented by the “Rights and Justice” association, the “Women’s Aspirations” association, the “Free Hands” association, the “Voice of Amazigh Women”, the “Al-Nakhil” association, the “Tawazah Association for the Advocacy of Women,” and the “Afolki Association for Women”, The “Civil Coalition for the Defense of Women’s Rights”, the “Tildat” association, and the “Citizens” association.
