Violence Towards Women in Morocco

I was recently able to attend a conference on violence directed towards women in Morocco. Unfortunately, it was almost entirely in Arabic -- I mean, unfortunately for me, since my Arabic is limited to a handful of everyday phrases. However, fortunately, there was a woman who was kind enough to whisper a French translation in the back of the room, and all of the foreign interns without Arabic skills, including myself, were huddled around her, listening intently.



The thing that struck me the most about the content of the final report on the subject, produced by a national network of centers for female victims of violence, was the way in which the concept of violence was defined and categorized. The different forms of violence recognized in the report included physical, sexual, but also psychological, judicial, and economic. Not having access to the court system in order to obtain legal reparations was considered to be a form of violence against women. Men withholding money from their wives in order to elicit whatever behaviors was considered to be a form of violence. From my viewpoint, this seemed to be a really different way of looking at the issue. I think, for the most part, that we think of violence towards women in the US strictly as physical and sexual abuse. In the US, in my opinion, we don't think of economic violence as a form of violence, since this concept would jeopardize our hypercapitalistic, dog eat dog economic system. Having grown up in an abusive home, I know what an impact the treat of economic retribution can have on a woman's decision to leave or to stay.

The other evening, I had the most wonderful and interesting experience. I was invited into the home of a Moroccan family for the evening. The mother, around 60 years of age, in traditional Moroccan dress, sat aside her 27 year old daughter, in jeans and a t shirt, watching a pussy cat dolls video on the television. The mother had raised six children -- she had given birth to eight, and most of her children are now living in France, where they were also educated. Her oldest is about 45, her youngest, 27.

She told me that she had been married via an arranged marriage when she was twelve. Her father had decided to marry her off, and she had had no say in the matter. She said that her mother and her sisters cried and begged and pleaded with her father not to marry her off, but to no avail. She told me that she was terrified. Her future husband was about 10 years older than herself. She told me that she was expected to have sex with her husband as he wished, as well as to cook and clean and take care of the house. She said that she didn't know how to cook, and that her husband beat her as a result. Her sister had to come live with her for awhile to teach her how to prepare tajine and cous cous. She had her first child at 15. I was struck at how honest and open she was. And, she told me all of these things within earshot of her husband. At 70, he was now about half her size, and seemed tiny and frail to me. He was kind to me, but spoke little to nothing.

I asked her what she thought of the women parading around half naked in music videos. She told me that she thought it was fine for this modern period in time, but that if she were that age, she would be too shy to do as much. The mother started to cry, and said something in Arabic, and I was terrified that I had offended her in some way, that I had taken more than enough time to breathe between bites of tajine, but, no. The daughter told me that her mother cried, because she thought that I had the face of a Muslim. I took this to be a great complement. One is constantly exhorted to eat, eat in a Moroccan home. I ate until I thought I would be ill, and then I had to stop. Moroccan cuisine is fantastic. A visitor to Morocco will never go hungry, because everyone wants to feed you.

Later, the daughter and I slept in one salon, and her parents in another nearby. They chatted and laughed and spoke in Arabic well into the night. The daughter joked with me about her elderly parents, "the lovers chit chat." I asked the daughter about what she thought about her parents relationship. She told me that they still love each other very much and that they are very happy together. She said that her mother held no grudge about the beatings early in their marriage. She said -- "time passes."

This family situation is very typical of Morocco, I think -- the blending of old and new, traditional and modern, accepting of new social mores for the younger generations while the older generations still maintain the traditions. But, the daughter still hid any pictures of herself with her boyfriend in the pillows of the couch in the salon. She was on the pill, but her mother was not aware that she was having sex. But, she had made her boyfriend wait two years before they had begun an intimate sexual relationship. All of these contrasts in juxtaposition are what make Morocco so fascinating.