The move comes after a 16 year old teenager, Amina Filali poisoned herself six months after being forced to marry a 23 year old abusive man who she said raped her. Amina Filali now lies buried near her family home near the north of Morocco
The incident sparked outrage and calls are being made for reform in Morocco. Women’s rights activists welcomed Justice Minister Mustapha Ramid’s announcement of the new law, but said it was only the first step in reforming a penal code that does not do enough to stop violence against women in the North African Kingdom.
As one family comes to a term with the loss, many are questioning how a country can allow such a law to remain in the books. Eight years ago, Morocco’s family law was reformed and allowed women to seek divorce and raise the marriage age from 15 years to 18 years. However this gave the countrys conservative and predominantly male Judges to allow minors to be married.
Campaigners point to article 475 of the Moroccan penal code which allows so called kidnappers of a minor to marry their victims to avoid prosecution. The same article has been used to justify a practice allowing a rapist to marry his victim to preserve the honour of the family.
At the time of Filali’s rape, the government promised to review the article. In a statement, government spokesman Mustafa El-Khalfi said, "This is a painful incident. This is an issue we cannot afford to ignore. She was raped twice-once by the rapist and the second time by marrying him. We plan to have harsher sentences against rapists and we will launch a debate about law 475 to reform it."
Khadija Ryadi, president of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights says, “Changing this article is a good thing but it doesn’t meet all of our demands. The penal code has to be totally reformed because it contains many provisions that discriminate against women and doesn’t protect women against violence.” She reiterated that particular parts of the law that distinguish between “rape resulting in deflowering and just plain rape.”
The new article, gives a 10-year penalty for consensual sex following the corruption of a minor, but doubles the sentence if the sex results in “deflowering”. Fouzia Assouli, president of the Democratic League for Women’s rights concurred with Ryadi saying that the code only penalises violence against women from a moral standpoint “and not because it is just violence”.
The Ministry of Justice and Freedom at that time said that a preliminary investigation which was suspended after the pair’s marriage showed that Amina was not raped and that she agreed to have sex with the man who later married her and that the pair were in a relationship for more than a year before they married
Amina's parents refuted the statement and insist that their daughter was raped and that they submitted to "pressures" to agree to the marriage. Amina's father told Morocco’s 2M, "When the judge said they will marry, I did not agree, but I could not challenge the law. When the court of family affairs called me, and pressured me, I agreed. I wanted that man (the rapist) to go to prison."
Prime Minister Abdelilah in December said, “In 550 cases of the corruption of minors between 2009 and 2010, only seven were married under Article 475 of the penal code.”
Fat'hya Yakoubi from the Moroccan Human Rights Associations says that the law that leaves it to the judge’s discretion to allow marriages must be deleted…Girls who are still minors must not be married and there should be no exceptions to that. Marriage can never be a solution to rape; it's a crime and must be punished.
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