Morocco

On the eve of the celebration of the National Day of Moroccan Women, we learn with satisfaction that the Minister of the Interior just designated the Soulaliyates Women with the right to benefit, under the same rules as men, from the next cessions of communal lands.

This decision is the culmination of many steps and actions with relevant officials; it also repairs the sense of injustice felt by thousands of women who have tirelessly condemned the archaic law that deprived them of their lands.

Equality Without Reservation

Photo © WLP

An interview with Lina Abou Habib, the Executive Director of the Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action, a Lebanon based organisation involved in the regional Equality without Reservation campaign.

By Kathambi Kinoti

AWID: Please tell us about your organisation, the Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action (CRTD.A)

Lina Abou Habib: CRTD.A is a non-governmental feminist organisation based in Beirut, Lebanon and working across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Gulf region on the critical issues of gender equality, citizenship, economic rights and leadership. Our structure involves a network of women's rights and feminist organisations across the region in Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Morocco and Algeria. CRTD.A is the country coordinator of the Equality without Reservation campaign. We are also the regional International Gender and Trade Network antenna. Our other campaigns include the Arab Women's Right to Nationality campaign as well as the Women's Work Campaign.

AWID: What is the Equality without Reservation campaign about, and why the name?

LAH: The Equality without Reservation campaign is a regional campaign covering the MENA and Gulf Region. The campaign calls for:

1. The lifting all reservations on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);
2. Ratification of the CEDAW Optional Protocol.

Interview with leading Moroccan women’s rights advocate, Rabéa Naciri

By Lina Abou-Habib, Executive Director, CRTD-A, Lebanon

More than two years after the launch of the Equality Without Reservation Campaign in Morocco, King Mohammed VI, on the occasion of the 60th celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declared in his address to the Moroccan Human Rights Consultative Council that Morocco has lifted its reservation on CEDAW. The Campaign calls for Arab States to lift their reservation on the Convention and ratify without further delay the CEDAW Optional Protocol. Arab States have expressed numerous reservations particularly on Articles 2, 9, 15, and 16, rendering its implementation in most Arab countries virtually impossible.

Speaking about the Equality without Reservation Campaign, Rabéa Naciri, the former president of Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (the regional coordinator of the Equality without Reservation Coalition) indicated that "Arab states’ ratification of treaties is essentially aimed at improving their image to the external world. The Campaign was therefore necessary to ensure that Arab States honor their commitments vis-à-vis their citizens."

Naciri explains that "the importance of CEDAW is that it is a common and coherent tool for implementation [of women’s rights] and for measuring progress. Thus, women and human rights organizations need to mobilize to ensure that CEDAW and other Human Rights conventions are duly and truthfully implemented within each country. This implies that positive changes and transformation are brought in at the level of women's lives, conditions and positions."

Rabat - 19 December 2008

Open letter from the Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM) to the Minister of Interior in Morocco

Violation of departmental procedures in the transfer of “collectively used lands” by the Ministry of Interior

The royal letter to the Moroccan Consultative Council of human rights (CCDH) on December 10th, 2008 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, announced the withdrawal of the reservations expressed to CEDAW at its ratification by Morocco in 1993.

From August 30th to September 4th, WLP’s partners from Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, and Palestine gathered in Potomac, Maryland, for a Strategic Planning and Capacity Building Institute. This six-day program provided opportunities for a rich dialogue addressing partners’ expectations and experiences in implementing WLP’s participatory leadership methodology through trainings, advocacy, and organizational development. During the Institute, participants co-created a draft curriculum for organizational strategic planning and capacity building, developed a timetable for carrying out this strategic planning process with individual partner organizations, and undertook an intensive review of WLP's Leading to Choices curriculum and trainings after eight years of its implementation.

Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) and Fondo para el Desarollo de la Mujer (FODEM) convened the first Central America Regional Training of Trainers Institute for Women's Leadership from January 28th-February 1st in Managua, Nicaragua. The Institute brought together twenty-four participants from seven countries in the region: Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and El Salvador. Facilitators included Malena de Montis, founder and current Board member of FODEM; Sonia Morin and Luz Veronica Flores, members of FODEM’s training team; and Amina Lemrini of Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM), WLP’s partner in Morocco.

FODEM held a book launch event on the first day to introduce Liderazgo Para La Toma De Decisiones, the spanish version of Leading to Choices: A Leadership Training Handbook for Women. Leading to Choices outlines WLP’s leadership concept which is participatory, horizontal, and dialogue-based, and is the foundation for workshops and Institutes.