Minister of Justice at the House of Councilors.. underage marriage bothers us a lot due to its negative implications on girls’ life

Minister of Justice, Mr. Abdellatif Ouahbi has called at a meeting at the House of Councilors, for the necessity to make more efforts and action to support women issues, highlighting that Moroccan women’s rights still need to achieve desired objectives.

Minister of Justice said, at the beginning of his intervention during a roundtable organized by the Ministry of Justice in partnership with the House of Councilors last Thursday, May 26, 2022, about the topic “Women, from a subject in the justice apparatus to an activist in change and development”, as much as we have achieved many gains for Moroccan women, we are still endeavoring to do more, since there are many requirements in this field, and women issues should be handled today with determination and with a vision for the future to serve their interest”.

Minister Ouahbi has clarified in his intervention “there are still many spheres where we should work hard to promote women issues and the difference in needs is still big; while at the time a fewer women have reached responsible positions, rate estimated at 20%; on the other hand, there are still 80% of Moroccan women suffering from marginalization and exclusion in rural areas”.

Regarding steps being taken by the Ministry of Justice to promote women issues, Minister Ouahbi has confirmed that the Ministry has created a national observatory caring about women condition in justice among its goals is to updating all regulations related to women and helping them have easy access to justice; and also to follow up all international agreements that are of interest to women.

Minister Ouahbi has talked about constraints and pressures still facing women among them underage marriage, “a subject which bothers us due to its negative implications on young girls’ life”, stressing “the necessity to focus more on this phenomenon with courage and boldness to stop it as it is linked much more with increase of mortality rate and school dropping”; making clear that praiseworthy discourse about women gains should not hide the many negative aspects still undermining women conditions”.

At the political level, Minister Ouahbi has raised the quota issue as a positive discrimination, which has contributed to bring many women to Parliament, pointing that this measure has not reflected positively in bringing women to decision-making positions.

Minister Ouahbi has called on participants in the roundtable to the necessity to think collectively about appropriate means to defend women issues, economically and politically, due to women role in society as it was demonstrated during the covid-19 pandemic crisis, in terms of women relations with their family members and their handling the crisis in a very successful manner, this should be compensated with respect for political, economic and social position that reflect really women value and dignity.