konknaijaboy | On 23, Jan 2014

* Rape and Forced Marriage victim: Amina Filali.

On Saturday March 17, protesters took to the streets of Rabat, the Moroccon Capital and demonstrated against Morocco’s Rape Laws, demanding a change of the Law.

The demonstration followed the suspected suicide death of a teenage girl of between 15 and 16 years, who had been forced to marry her rapist, in compliance with Moroccan laws.

Yesterday the Moroccon government yielded to the demands of the demonstrators by changing the contraversial law which allowed rapists of underaged kids to escape punishment by marrying the victim.

If only that took place two years earlier, Amina Filali who took her own life in Larache, a city in northwestern Morocco, after she was forced by a judge to marry the man who raped her, would hopefully still be alive.

But her death, which sparked wide condemnation by rights activists has achieved a feet that will hopefully save the life of numerous other teenages in the North African nation.

The change was indeed a long time overdue because, according to a statement credited to Mororro’s Prime Minister, Abdelilah Benkirane “In 550 cases of the corruption of minors between 2009 and 2010, only seven were married under Article 475 of the penal code, the rest were pursued by justice.”

After much argument over the issue in parliament law makers have now changed the law.

Media reports said Amnesty International was delighted with Wednesday’s amendment and saw it a step in the right direction but “long overdue,” and urged a comprehensive strategy to protect women and girls from violence in Morocco.

“An official study published last month said nearly nine percent of Moroccan women have been physically subjected to sexual violence at least once. More than 50 percent of violence against women is thought to take place within marriage, and marital rape is not recognised as a crime.”, Ahram News papers said.

Sexual harassment of women is common in many countries and Arab Countries are no exception – even with islamic laws in place. And despite the adoption of a new constitution Morocco in 2011 which stipulates gender equality and urges the state to promote it, reports say, that sadly remains the case.

The new rape law will hopefully help address those concerns and perhaps reassure women in Morocco.

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