Morocco – Single Mother Fights Tradition & Legal System for Her Illegitimate Child
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: July 22, 2005
WUNRN
MOROCCO – SINGLE MOTHER FIGHTS
TRADITION & THE LEGAL SYSTEM FOR HER ILLEGITIMATE CHILD – FILM
Deborah Perkin Media Ltd
presents
BASTARDS
How an illiterate woman
took on tradition, her own family and the Moroccan legal system for the sake of
her illegitimate child
Documentary written, directed and filmed by Deborah Perkin
Featuring Rabha El Haimer, Aicha Chenna, Fatiha
Rabbah, Soumia Idman, Lamia Faridi
SYNOPSIS
How an illiterate woman took on tradition, her own
family and the Moroccan legal system for the sake of her illegitimate child
Bastards tells the
moving and uplifting story of Rabha El Haimer and her heroic fight to have her
traditional wedding ceremony legally recognized as a marriage and her daughter
legitimized by the Moroccan judicial system. It is also a complex and
compelling portrait of Moroccan society and its attitudes to women, female
sexuality, their position in society and access to education.
Through Rabha’s story, the Moroccan judicial system is laid open and the
contemporary issues facing Islamic women are exposed as they seek to reconcile
their desire for increased independence with religious and family traditions.
INTRODUCTION
At 14 Rabha El Haimer was
forced into a marriage with a man she had never met. After her daughter was
born, she discovered that the wedding, a traditional ceremony, had no legal
status. Her child was therefore illegitimate.
In Morocco,
as in all Muslim countries, sex outside marriage is illegal. But in rural
communities like Rabha’s the ‘fatha’ ceremony is common, and in every respect
the women involved are regarded as wives, who must obey their husbands utterly.
But outside these villages, in modern-day Morocco,
that fatha is not recognised as a legal marriage. So women like Rabha and their
children exist in limbo.
These ‘illegitimate’
children are refused infant immunisations and kept out of the better schools.
Their non-status means their fathers can reject them – and their mothers – and
fail to support them, in the knowledge that the law is effectively on their
side. And it doesn’t end there. Throughout the children’s lives the stigma
remains. They are prevented from taking more lucrative and prestigious jobs,
such as in the civil service or the police. They are second-class citizens,
condemned to a life of discrimination.
Rabha el Haimer has made it her mission to
challenge this. Despite not being able to read or write, she has embarked on a
mission to get her fatha marriage
recognised so she can register her daughter as a full Moroccan citizen. With
unprecedented access to the Moroccan justice system, Bastards follows her
journey from the slums of Casablanca,
where she now lives, to the courts in Agadir. It is the first film ever to reveal this side of
life in a modern Arab country, and to take cameras into the Moroccan courts.
In her quest, Rabha faces
not only the judges and officials but her child’s father, a violent and
uncompromising man who refuses to acknowledge or support their daughter. She
also endures insults from his family, and the self-justification of her own
mother, who married her off at just 14.
However the story is not
all negative.
In 2004, the Moroccan government made the most
radical attempt to date in a Muslim country to give women individual rights
under Islamic law, with the reform of the
‘Mudawana’ or Family Code. And a pioneering Casablanca
charity, L’Association Solidarité Feminine, is helping her and other
disadvantaged women. Another ground-breaking aspect of the film is that it
shows Muslim women in positions of some authority challenging the status quo,
notably the fearless founder of the ASF, Aicha
Chenna, and charismatic social worker Soumia
Idman. But the battle is still a daunting one, with centuries of entrenched
beliefs to overturn.
Rabha’s story is interwoven
with those of a mistress fighting for child maintenance, a young student who
cannot get the job he wants because of his illegitimacy and a single mother whose boyfriend tried to sell their baby.
Revealing the many facets
of a modern Muslim country, Bastards is a deeply moving, funny,
and ultimately triumphant portrait of courage in the face of adversity.
Rabha’s story
At the age of 14, her
mother and her uncle forced Rabha into an arranged marriage to an older cousin
she had never met. When she moved into his home, she discovered that he was
deaf and mute, so communication was all but impossible – and according to
Rabha, he was also violent.
After two years of rape and
beatings, Rabha was pregnant and suicidal. The cousin’s family responded by
throwing her out.
It was then Rabha
discovered that her traditional marriage ceremony had no status in law. She had
been compelled to submit to her husband’s authority like a wife, but had none of
a wife’s rights. She was classed as a single mother and her cherished daughter
Salma, a bastard.
But Rabha refused to remain a victim. Despite being unable to read
or write she embarked on a crusade to compel Salma’s father and his family to face up to their responsibilities,
and to gain full citizenship for her child. Helping her fight this battle was a
unique and radical charity in Casablanca,
L’Association Solidarité Feminine.
And following her was award-winning
filmmaker Deborah Perkin.
Over eighteen months, Rabha makes three journeys to Agadir
to fight her way through the courts with the help of her determined and
committed female lawyer Lamia Faridi.
And Perkin’s camera follows them into court.
There are shocking scenes as Rabha is made to swear on oath that she was a
virgin when she got married, and her mute husband insists in sign language that
he is not the father of her child. He even denies the ceremony took place – he
wasn’t there. Rabha’s extraordinary courage and persistence in the face of such
odds are further demonstrated when she persuades several of the witnesses from
the wedding to make the hundred mile journey to support her in court.
Morocco – the background
In most Muslim countries
sex outside marriage is taboo. But Morocco
is leading the way with a more tolerant attitude to single mothers and their
‘bastard’ children.
With 6500 babies abandoned
every year, Morocco
is now encouraging single parents to be reconciled as the most constructive way
forward. L’Association Solidarité
Feminine (ASF), the Casablanca charity featured in the film, has been at
the forefront of changing attitudes over the past thirty years, and at the
centre of the campaign to reform the Family Code. While the women in the
documentary remain victims of social and religious intolerance, they are at the
same time beneficiaries of a society edging towards a breakthrough in human
rights.
The Mudawana
The Mudawana,is the personal status code, also known as the family code, in Moroccan law.
It concerns issues related to the family, including the regulation of marriage, polygamy, divorce, inheritance,
and child
custody.
Originally based on the Maliki school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, it was codified after the country gained
independence from France
in 1956. Its most recent revision, passed by the Moroccan parliament in 2004,
has been praised by human rights activists for its measures to address women’s
rights and gender equality within an Islamic legal framework.
Although there were calls for reform to the family law in the 1960s and
70s, its religious origins made amending it a challenge, and no
serious movement for reform emerged until the 1980s. As a result of newly
created civil society organizations, including many women’s organizations, and
increased international attention on women’s rights, modest reforms to the
Mudawana were enacted in 1993 under King Hassan
II. Following this initial change, increased activism resulted in the
articulation of a Plan of Action for the Integration of Women
in Development, which drew heavily from secular, rights-based frameworks. This
sparked fierce debate and opposition within Moroccan political elites and, to a
somewhat lesser extent, Moroccan society, and culminated in two rallies in Casablanca and Rabat in March 2000 – one
in support of reform and one in opposition to it. This occurred shortly after Mohammad
VI succeeded
his father as King, and within a year of the rallies, he announced the
formation of a commission to further reform the Mudawana. In 2003, he announced
his intention to replace the code entirely, citing his authority as both
spiritual and political leader of the nation, and by January 2004, the Moroccan
parliament ratified the new version.
Major components of the reforms included raising the minimum
legal age of marriage to 18 for men and women,
establishing joint responsibility for the family among men and women, limiting
the terms of polygamy and divorce, and granting women more rights in the
negotiation of marriage contracts, among other provisions. Supporters of the
reforms point to broad support for them among Moroccan society, especially
among women, and cite the new law as a successful example of a progressive
reform framed in indigenous, Islamic principles. Critics of the reforms point
to the elitist roots of the movements that advocated for the reforms, the
influence of Western secular principles, and the many barriers to the law’s
implementation within Moroccan society.
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