“I swear nobody will marry you after me”. After the husband had made his threat, with an icy calm he picked up a razor and slashed his wife’s face, hands and chest. According to the local newspaper the girl had wanted to leave her husband because she was unhappy but he had other ideas. To prevent her from being able to rebuild a life for herself, he disfigured her forever.
The story of Khawla, a teenaged Moroccan girl from Marrakesh, is one that affects many women each year in every corner of the globe, from the Southern shores of the Mediterranean to many Asian countries and even in Western democracies. At sixteen Khawla was raped: despite being the victim, the shame would have stigmatised her forever and so, in order to preserve her honour, her family forced her to marry her attacker.
“We believed that it was the right thing to do for her and for her future, otherwise she would have been destined to remain alone,” her now regretful parents admitted to the local press.
If she hadn’t married the man, he would have been sentenced to five years in prison.
The crime of sexual assault in Morocco is governed by article 475 of the Penal Code, which consisted of two clauses: the first established a five year prison term for rape; the second exempted from prison those who married their victim. In January this year, after two years of debate and campaigning by civil society and international human rights organizations, the second clause was amended and now in Morocco whoever rapes a woman can no longer take advantage of this shortcut to avoid prosecution.
The final straw that ultimately led to the repeal of a law that was well-rooted in Moroccan society was the story of Amina Filali, a 16-year-old girl who in March 2012 killed herself by swallowing rat poison after having been forced to marry Mustafa Sallak, the man who had raped her one year before.
Amina’s story pushed Morocco into the international spotlight at a time when the winds of the Arab revolutions were swirling around the region. In spite of the many activists, members of civil society and politicians that had been calling for the annulment of the second clause of article 475, at the final sitting in January 2014 only sixty parliamentarians, a sixth of the total number, voted. They opted to amend the law.
Returning to Khawla’s story there was one further twist. In spite of the backing of her family and international organizations, some of whom were willing to support her post-separation, others offering to finance reconstructive plastic surgery, Khawla decided to forgive her husband,
“I still love him and I want to be with him,” she told a local radio station.
When asked how she managed to forgive him yet another time, Khawla justified him by explaining, “ He wasn’t himself, he was angry and he had been provoked by the families. What’s more, he was under the effects of hard drugs”.
She even threatened to kill herself if he wasn’t released from prison.
Following the repeal of the most controversial part of article 475, today human rights organizations in Morocco are awaiting changes regarding two other laws: one for the unequivocal punishment of those who commit violence against women and the other to put an end to underage marriage. Every year in Morocco many girls under the age of 15 are married thanks to shortcuts included in article 20 of the Moudawana Family Code that, in practice, allows judges to use their own discretion to permit underage marriages and waive the requirement for medical examinations or social enquiries.
Edited by Nicholas Neiger
“I swear nobody will marry you after me”. After the husband had made his threat, with an icy calm he picked up a razor and slashed his wife’s face, hands and chest. According to the local newspaper the girl had wanted to leave her husband because she was unhappy but he had other ideas. To prevent her from being able to rebuild a life for herself, he disfigured her forever.
