Morocco Rethinks Child Marriage After Girl Forced to Marry Rapist Commits Suicide (REPORT)

(PHOTO: Child marriage is practice in many countries. Here in India, children advocate against it./Bikya Masr)By Abderrahim El Ouali

(Casablanca, MOROCCO) - The widespread practice of marrying minors continues to be one of the most incendiary legal and political issues in Morocco today, causing open confrontations between hard-line Islamists and moderates throughout the country.

Speaking on national television last month, Mohammed Abdenabawi, an official of the Ministry of Justice, declared that 30,000 minor girls are married every year – roughly 10 percent of the 300,000 marriages recorded every year in this country of 32 million inhabitants.

The phenomenon is widespread, the consequences for young women and girls severe, and the efforts of civil society sustained, though maintaining momentum against a tide of cultural and religious conservatism is challenging.

(PHOTO: A woman holding a photo of Amina Filali/WOMEN.COM)A campaign to gather one million signatures to forbid the marriage of minors is already in progress, sparked by the death of Amina Filali, a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide by taking rat poison in March after being forced to marry her rapist due to an interpretation of Moroccan law;  the rapist was allowed to avoid prosecution by marrying his victim.

Supposedly to protect family and female "honour", a court evoked legislation in the penal and family codes to force Filali to marry the man 10 years older than she who forced her, at knifepoint, to submit to him.

Both the court case and Filali’s suicide opened the floodgates to a deluge of public debate and activism around the issue, which had hitherto been a taboo topic in traditional Moroccan society.

Jamal Rhmani, a member of the opposition Socialist Union for Popular Forces and former Minister of Employment, told IPS, "The campaign has gathered more than 780,000 signatures up to now."

Despite being a member of the political opposition and one of the lead organizers of the campaign to ban marriage of minors, Rhmani sees his involvement in activism first and foremost from his perspective as the father of a 14-year-old daughter.

"Before being a politician, I am a father. We cannot be indifferent to what is happening around us," he explained.

Activists, rights groups and members of the opposition have been clamoring for the abolition of article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, which allows rapists to get off scott-free if they agree to marry their victims; as well as articles 20 and 21 of the family code, which allows the marriage of minor girls.

(PHOTO: In Yemen, 52% of girls are married before 18/SANA) But the root of the problem runs deep, and will require more systemic change than the abolition of one or two laws

"The culprit is archaic jurisprudence implemented by ignoramuses," Chakib Khettou, a citizen of Casablanca, told IPS, referring to the Muslim law allowing the marriage of girls older than nine years, according to traditional law.

Back in 2008, Sheik Mohamed El Maghrawi, a well-known Moroccan Muslim scholar, published a Fatwa reiterating families’ right to marry off their daughters over the age of nine. His position provoked a major scandal but the scholar suffered no consequences.

During a press conference in the city of Marrakesh last April, El Maghrawi even expressed his attachment to his position, "based on the Quran and the words of the Prophet" according to him.

However, opposition to this particular reading of Sharia’a law has become widespread.

Ahmed Faridi, a teacher who holds a licence degree in Sharia’a law, told to IPS, "Nothing in the Quran allows marrying a nine-year-old girl," he explained. Even if it turns out that the Prophet of Islam himself had married a minor girl, "he is in that case an exception and cannot be a rule," Faridi stressed.

Traditionalists won’t let go

Minister of Justice and Liberties, Mustapha Erramid, is not as moderate as some of the activists pushing for the marriage ban.

In a national televised address last March, the Minister said, "The marriage of minor girls is not forbidden by the law."

(PHOTO: Women protesting in Rabat after Filali died/MoroccoWorld)A lawyer by trade, Erramid is "tolerant" towards the amendment of article 475 of the penal code, but refused to speak about the amendment of articles 20 and 21 of the family code.

The Islamist Minister hinted that demonstrations similar to those held against the National Plan for Women’s Integration in Development, enacted under the socialist government of Abderrahmane Youssoufi in 1999, were not far off.

Back then, thousands of Islamists hailing from the ruling Justice and Development Party (PJD) took to the streets of Casablanca against Youssoufi’s plan to include women in political and economic development, which they judged as "incompatible" with Sharia’a because it forbade polygamy and fixed the minimum age of marriage for women at 18 years old.

Still, current members of parliament are not too worried that today’s activism will see such a vehement reaction by conservatives.

"A national debate on this subject is at present necessary to amend the penal code and the code of the family. A legislative initiative is already being taken by the socialist group in parliament to guarantee more protection to minor girls," Rhmani said.

The second chamber of parliament held a meeting on the subject last week. The president of the chamber, Mohamed Cheikh Biadilah, said the proposed amendments should be viewed in "the spirit of the new constitution", adopted during the turbulence of the Arab Spring, which "commits the State to guarantee the social and economic rights of the family" and "to protect minors (regardless) of their family or social position" and "forbids any shape of discrimination based on gender."

Biadilah also said, "The legislative power has the obligation to intervene every time it notices that a law has become incompatible with the development of the society."

"All the laws that go against the dignity of women must be amended or even abolished", said the president of the Chamber of Councilors in Moroccan parliament.

--This article originally appeared in InterPress Service

RELATED:  In India, 16 Year Old girl says no to child marriage

Sexual Abuse Keeps Girls Away From School in Papua New Guinea (REPORT)

(PHOTO: Teenage girls in Papua New Guinea/WorldBank)By Catherine Wilson

(Goroka, Papua New Guinea) - Sexual harassment of school going girls may prevent Papua New Guinea from achieving the Millennium Development Goal of eliminating gender disparity in education by 2015.

Papua New Guinea’s new free education policy has dramatically increased school enrollment, and a gross enrollment rate of 80 percent is within reach by 2015. But the United Nations’ eight MDGs pertaining to girls’ education remain elusive.

While PNG’s constitution promotes equal participation by men and women in national development, political, cultural, social and infrastructural factors inhibit girls staying in the school system, reflecting a wider lack of women in the formal workforce, governance and decision-making roles.

The United Nations Development Program rates the nation at 153 out of 187 countries in gender equality. The education department reports the average educational attainment of girls is grade 10. On average boys complete high school, reaching grade 12.

However, the nation’s cultural and social diversity means there is geographical variance.

(PHOTO: Teenage girls in Papua New Guinea/MISSIONNET)“The state of school infrastructure, particularly in rural areas, is a significant hindrance to the achievement of equitable education outcomes,” said Arnold Kukari, leader of the universal basic education research program at the National Research Institute.

Betty Hinamunimo, field officer with CARE International, a nongovernmental organization that works in partnership with the education department, said factors impeding girls’ education included “distance and cultural and social barriers, such as the fear families have of sending girls to urban centers where their safety is not guaranteed.”

Girls in PNG are at high risk of domestic and sexual violence, sexual harassment in schools, commercial exploitation and HIV, which pose serious threats to their health and education.

Ume Wainetti at the Family Sexual Violence Action Center said, “When FSVAC conducted the study on violence against children in 2005, young girls in rural schools said they get harassed by teachers and by male students, especially when they are going to school or going home.”

Wainetti said many of the young girls interviewed by FSVAC, based in the capital of Port Moresby, were already mothers.

Cultural and social barriers to education include the burden placed on girls of family care, domestic responsibilities and customary marriage, which happens as early as 12 years old. The International Center for Research on Women estimates a third of girls in the developing world are married before 18 years old and have children before they reach 20.

The education department’s plan for decreasing the disparity stresses training staff in gender sensitization and sexual violence awareness.

Philip Afuti, president of the PNG teachers’ association, Eastern Highlands, and head teacher of North Goroka primary school, is committed to gender equality. Eighty percent of teachers are female, while the school has 630 male and 523 female students.

“We want to see the girls have an equal opportunity as boys in the education system,” Afuti declared. “They should be able to build this nation in partnership. We want to see that. PNG will only develop when both males and females are educated.”

This year, the national government rolled out a free and subsidized education policy, which has impacted female enrolment.

“We have increased the numbers of females enrolling,” Afuti verified. “Some who left a few years ago have also come back.”

But there are also inadequate mechanisms of support for school-going girls suffering from sexual abuse.

“If there are avenues for redress to such offences, these are not made known to students and parents,”  Wainetti said.

“It is unfortunate that many teachers will not do anything about these abuses until the parents of the girl or boy turn up at the school to beat up the students who have been harassing their child,”  Wainetti said.

 -- This article originally appeared in The Jakarta Globe

The Nike Foundation's "Girl Effect" (Exclusive report)

From the ground up – Small-scale, grassroots programs for girls are informed by local expertise, networks and cultural propriety. Here, EMpower and Nishtha (which means “devotion” in Bengali) in West Bengal provide tools and training for girls to educate their peers about issues such as reproductive health. (photo: Nike Foundation) (HN, October 4, 2010) - Most NGOs and UN agencies probably look at Leslie Lane and his dream team at the Nike Foundation with a sense of envy.

As Vice-President and Managing Director of the foundation, the Briton, Lane, has at his disposal a healthy bank account, the freedom to do targeted, long-term interventions - and a crack team of professionals that are able to develop and monitor projects in developing countries with a business sense.

What's more, Lane says, he isn't encumbered with the branding side of Nike - or having to squeeze PR points out of the foundation's projects around the world.

"We've really been given the space to address the issues surrounding adolescent girls. We're not about building markets….We're really free to work where the greatest need is for adolescent girls and not to be driven by a marketplace approach," said Lane.

The six-year-old Nike Foundation is obsessed with the so-called `Girl Effect' - empowering adolescent girls to take better care of themselves, become active and energize other girls so that they can protect themselves from scourges ranging from HIV and AIDS to sex slavery. In many parts of the world, girls are forced into early marriages, have children before they enter adulthood and are seen as little more than assets by family and community members.

Lane cited as an example of what Nike gets back from the foundation's work is learning a lot about social networking - or about specific markets - and that knowledge gets pushed back to colleagues on the brand side. "There is transfer of learning going in from across two very different worlds," he said. And for the Foundation - access to a pool of top professionals from one of the world's most successful and widely-known brands.

"Our advantage, in some ways, is that we are actually small, and the whole concept of the foundation is to really work with multiple partners and agencies and individuals interested in this area to help move the whole agenda forward. We can get very entrepreneurial and leveraged obsessed when we do our work," Lane said in an interview with HUMNEWS following the Clinton Global Initiative summit in New York, where the foundation premiered the fantastically compelling three-minute `Girl Effect' video.

Lane, himself a veteran of the international business world - he has an MA in Chemistry from Oxford and a MBA from Harvard and before heading Nike's global running business worked with Roll International and Bain and Company - says he collaborates with "a balanced team that combines professionals from brand management as well as knowledgeable people with field experience from the development side". The foundation tries to maintain very close relationships with its programme partners in the field, spending as much time with them as possible. The nimble nature of the organization allows it to easily shift course mid-stream if evidence shows the need for adjustments.

The foundation, which is supported by Nike Inc. and the NoVo Foundation, is unique in the sense that it has an exclusive focus on adolescent girls in the developing world. They define the `Girl Effect' as: `improving a girl's life in order to improve the lives of those around her; her brothers, sisters, parents and beyond. As an educated mother, an active citizen and an ambitious entrepreneur, or prepared employee - she can break the cycle of poverty.

The Foundation cites stark statistics that underpin its focused mission: nearly half of girls in most developing countries are married before they turn 20, and about half bear children while still children themselves. Half of sexual assaults are against girls younger than 15 and young girls disproportionately carry the burden of HIV and AIDS; in Sub-Saharan Africa 76 percent of infected youths are females.

Keeping girls in school pays incredible dividends, the foundation says. With just seven or more years of education, a girl customarily marries four years later, and has 2.2 fewer children. An extra year of primary school boosts future wages by as much as 20 percent, and an extra year of secondary school by as much as a quarter.

Lane knows better than many how to achieve results against a ticking clock: he was a competitive runner in high school and a college rugby player and rower.

Lane credits the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), which this year incorporated a plenary session on girls and women, for placing issues related to adolescent girls front and centre. "There was strong recognition that the power of adolescent girls could actually have impact on the many issues that face the attendees of CGI - whether it be health, education, peace and security, or economic growth. Girls were emphasized as a tremendous resource for positive change."

When asked what project he is particularly proud of, Lane points to the foundation's support of an initiative to address the issue of child marriages in the Amphora region of Ethiopia. In less than two years, families are seeing the value of keeping girls in school longer. "We've been able to show people the value of the girl," said Lane.

Lane says more emphasis is being placed on his foundation and others in the development field on results-oriented programming. "The real shift in development is coming with people that are very much focused on outcomes than on inputs: you can distribute a certain number of (anti-malaria) bed nets, but making sure that the outcome of those bed nets being used effectively to control malaria is really an outcome-based orientation."

Asked whether the message to invest in girls is getting through to African leaders, Lane says he is seeing a shift. "We are very much at a tipping point: there are some real visionary leaders in Africa that have recognized this already. There is programming and agencies and people are working very hard to continue to tell these stories (of success). " He pointed to a conditional cash transfer programme directly to girls in Malawi that has had a tremendous effect on the reduction and prevalence of HIV infections among girls there.

--- Reporting by HUMNEWS'  Michael Bociurkiw.