Cultural Adaptations: The Moroccan Women’s Campaign to Change the Moudawana[1]
Alexandra Pittman
Boston, USA
with the support of Rabéa Naciri, President ADFM
Rabat, Morocco
Web Version
September, 2007
This paper was prepared for the project on Citizen Engagement and National Policy Change, coordinated by John Gaventa at the Institute of Development Studies and Gary Hawes, of the Ford Foundation. We are grateful to the Ford Foundation for its support. We anticipate that shorter versions of the papers will be forthcoming as a printed volume.
Other papers in the series include:
Protecting the Child: Civil Society and the State in Chile
Is Knowledge Power? The Right to Information Campaign in India
Mexico Case Study: Civil Society and the Struggle to Reduce Maternal Mortality
Reforming the Penal Code in Turkey: The Campaign for the Reform of the Turkish Penal Code from a Gender Perspective
The Extraordinary ‘Ordinary’: The Campaign for Comprehensive AIDS Treatment in South Africa
The National Campaign for Land Reform in the Philippines
Urban Reform, Participation and the Right to the City in Brazil
Introduction
This case study highlights the Moroccan women’s rights movement’s legislative campaign that led to the successful 2004 reform of the Moudawana, (also called Personal Status Code)[2] or Islamic family law.[3] Moroccan women’s rights activists’ effort to reform the family law and ensure that gender equality remained on the political agenda is positioned within a society where social and institutional barriers to women’s equality, status, and power persevere and where additional challenges arose from the surging Conservative Islamist opposition and the shifting political opportunity structure.
The Moroccan family law reform is a unique case for analysis because women’s rights activists located the proposed legislative changes in an Islamic frame of reference as well as and in relation to universal principles of human rights. Legally, the Moudawana reform in 2004 altered women’s rights and modes of participation in the family and has social implications for women’s participation in the public sphere as well. Some of the significant reforms include the right to autonomous decision-making in matters of legal affairs without the guardianship of a male, increasing women’s public rights and re-iterating their self-sufficiency; equal partnership over the household and responsibility over the children was granted, drastically altering the social relations and norms within the family; and the necessity of both a husband and wife’s consent to dissolve a marriage. All of these reforms offer a tangible application of women’s autonomy and voice within the Moroccan family context. The organizing and mobilization successes of the Moroccan family law campaign have been seen as a model for other women’s rights activists in the Maghreb and the Middle East to be drawn upon, contextualized, and adapted to different settings.
Practically, the case broadens knowledge of the dynamic activism that exists in women’s movements in the Maghreb as well as describes the activists’ contributions that enabled the reform of the Moudawana, such astheir capacityto utilize and actively create political opportunities; to enhance the depth and strength of their advocacy efforts; to extend the reach and influence of their alliances and coalitions; and to remain flexible and adaptive in their campaign strategy.
A History of the Moudawana
In 1957-1958, after gaining independence from France, a commission of Oulema, religious scholars and interpreters of Islamic doctrines and laws underwent a process of debate, negotiation, and consensus on the contents of the Personal Status Code, orMoudawana. Thelegislationwas strongly inspired by Muslim rights within the Malikite tradition of Islamic jurisprudencebased on fiqh[4], whichoutlines the rights and obligations of men and women and governed all aspects of private life (at the religious, economic, and social levels).The former Moudawana (1957/58 – 2004) wasa patriarchal law, with the male being characterized as the head of household and superior tothe woman, whereas the woman wasconceptualized as an adult minor under the guardianship of a male. A few of the Personal Status Coderestrictions included women’s rights to seek divorce, retain custody of the children in case of divorce, and gain equal inheritance.
At the national level, the Moudawana,detailing rights relating to the family and women’s status, is the only set of codes that fall under Islamic law. Interestingly, even though the civil constitution adopted in 1962[5]grants equality to all Moroccan citizens, the Moudawanasupersedesconstitutionallaw in terms of women’s equality in the family.[6]With the exception of the Moudawana, all other legislation is secular, including penal and constitutional lawwhich occur in a civil court system, and is not completely equitable in terms of women’s rights.
Since the Moudawana’s inception, women’s rights activists have been organizing for reform to ensure more equitable rights. The activists have argued that the Quran, the hadith, and the tradition of the Prophet, thesunnahhad been subject to a masculine and conservative interpretation (Collectif 95 Maghreb Egalité, 2003). The activists locate the fiqh within an historically evolving perspective and draw upon the fundamental notions of ijtihad, or the process of making a legal decision on the religious interpretation of a doctrine or law, as the basis for the re-interpretation of traditional laws in alignment with current Moroccan socio-political values (Collectif 95 Maghreb Egalité, 2003).
In order to organize public support for the Moudawana reform, Union de l’Action Feminine, (UAF), through its newspaper 8 Mars, on March 3, 1992, launched a grassroots campaign to obtain a million signatures to support a petition in favor of the Moudawana reforms. This petition was a great success, with UAF obtaining over a million signatures, illustrating significant public support of legislative reform. In 1993, superficial legislativeamendments to the Moudawanawere made, after over thirty years of unsuccessful reform attempts the activists made though the 1960s to the 1980s.
Someof the more substantial changeswere: a womanmustconsent to marry by signing a registrywitnessed by officials appointed by the Minister of Justice, a fathercompelling his daughter to marry was abolished, a mother was ensured legal guardianship of her child, as well as minor clarifications made toa husband’s maintenance or nafaqa. These reforms were considered superficial because major issues of concern to women’s rights activists, i.e. marital tutorship, polygamy, divorce, and repudiation, were left virtually untouched. Even though the changes are considered superficial now, activists saw the reforms as a critical successfor future reform efforts, particularly as they knew thatonce the Moudawanahad been amended, it would no longer be seen as a sacred and unalterable text (Lemrini, 2004).
After the 1993Moudawanareforms, women’s rights groups continued to gather, organize, and mobilize for more extensive legislative amendments. In the early 1990s, women’s rights groups began to shift their communication strategies to incorporate human rights arguments and a democratization discourse along with the need for new religious interpretations.[7] Amina Lemrini of Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM), one of the key organizations in defending women’s rights, shared some of the organization’s strategies. The association ‘looked for local cultural strategies that secured the universal values of freedom, dignity, and rights…We justified this equality in terms of religion, using an argument that was hard to refute in our context.’[8]Activists highlighted a multi-pronged approach to arguing for reform as predicated byijtihad andbased on the current path the nation was taking toward more open democratic structures and alignment with principles of human rights and justice. They crafted arguments in favor of the Moudawana reform using religious, constitutional, sociological, and human rights discourses for use with different audiences (Collectif 95 Maghreb Egalité, 2003).
However during this time, Islamist backlash in the country heightened and women’s rights activists and their allies were increasingly charged with being un-Islamic among other insults.The women’s rights activists faced a countermovement that began to form in response to their claims. Two main forms of opposition formed at the time.Conservatives and Islamist political groupsbegan to use religion topersuasively reject the women’s rights activists’ claim of equality within the family. The religious conservatives argued for a close interpretation of Islamic principles and stated that any revision made to the Personal Status Code would be against Islam. They countered that in place of reforms, there should be greater respect for the traditions of Allah and the religion itself. On the other hand, the Political Islamists framed the reforms as an influence from the West that would put Moroccan society and Islam in danger. Their longer-term political plan entailed Morocco moving forward toward the goal of establishing an Islamic state (Guessous, 2007).
Due to accusations from the opposition that women’s rights activists were Westernized or loose, organizations began issuing statements such as these,‘Islam has from the beginning been a religion of justice and equality. On the basis of ijtihad the interpretations laid down in the Moudawana, which date from a period of decadence of Islamic scholarship and are closely linked to customary law, can be changed. Equality is not a foreign idea, but was defended by Islam long before it became fashionable in the West’ (Ligue Démocratique pour les Droits de la Femme, 2000, translation as seen in Buskens, 2003). Many activists argued that ‘True Islam means equality, human rights, and ijtihad (as seen in Buskens, 2003)’
A key shift in the Moroccan women’s movement campaign effort occurred with a change in political leadership (Buskens, 2003). Following the legislative elections in 1997, the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP) a Socialist opposition party came into political power, holding 57 of 325 seats.[9] Following this victory, in early 1998, King Hassan II appointed Abderrahmane El Youssoufi, USFP to the Prime Minister position.
The political opportunity for women’s voices to be heard further increased when King Mohamed VI assumed office in 1999 after the death of his father, King Hassan II. King Mohamed VI supported women’s equal rights, democratic deepening, and economic liberalization. A significant portion of the population held high hopes for improving their quality of life, so much so that the public characterized him ‘the king of the poor’ (Buskens, 2003). Building upon these opportunities, the women’s rights activists aimed to create a collective national platform, which could then be adapted for local, regional, or national mobilization and campaign efforts. The outcome of this vision for legal change was the Plan of Action for the Integration of Women in Development (PANIFD) (Plan d’Action pour l’Intégration des Femmes au Développement), which integrated the tenets of the Beijing Platform. Seven of the two hundred measures were related to the revision of the Moudawana. On March 19, 1999, Prime Minister Abderrhamane el-Youssoufi, publicly supported PANIFD.
However, extreme backlash from the conservative Islamist groups arose in response to this public display of support. Among such declarations was the League of Oulema of Morocco who opposed the reform of the Moudawana because it contradicted the Sharia, Quran, and sunnah. The League of Oulemawas angered because they were not consulted before the government supported the measure and therefore, they insulted women’s rights activists and supporters of PANIFD deeming them heretics (Buskens, 2003). Women’s rights groups responded that religious scholars did not have the absolute right to interpret Islam and that true democratization would result from cultural re-interpretations of family law (Buskens, 2003; Lemrini, 2004).During this time, the Conservatives and Political Islamistsformed an opposition network, ‘National Group for the Protection of the Moroccan Family’(Organisme national pour la protection de la famille Marocaine). The group launched a powerful opposition campaign, mobilizing and disseminating conservative ideology through mosques and within other shared cultural spaces such as in the medina, in the popular media, as well as lobbying in the political arena(Buskens, 2003; El Habti, 2007; and Guessous, 2007).Soon thereafter, the government withdrew their support for PANIFD.
In the face of this setback, women’s rights associations in Morocco organized two networks of NGOs in 1999. The first was called the Network of Support for PANIFD (Réseau d’appui au PANIFD) that advocated for the adoption of the action plan by the government. The Network encompassed over 200 human rights, women’s rights, and development associations who supported and promoted the measures put forth in the plan of action (Lemrini, 2005). The Network of Support for PANIFD took on a public mobilization and a political role of promoting the plan in order to show the extensive support for women’s rights that existed in the country and primarily mobilized civil society organizations. The second network was the Front for the Integration of Women in Development (Front pour l’intégration des femmes au Développement) and consisted of more than 50 women’s associations. The Front, in order to show mass support for PANIFD, focused heavily on mobilizing trade unions and cultural organizations along with women’s groups, to garner national and international support for the reform efforts and against the Conservative Islamists’ hostile actions to women’s rights groups. While the networks pursued separate actions, they were also complementary in nature and initiated common actions, such as mobilizing support for the Rabat march of 2000.
It was at this time, at a critical mobilization in 2000 that tensions between the women’s movement and the opposition movement peaked. In the streets of Rabat, a large public demonstration was heldwhere tens of thousands of women and men marched the streets demanding changes in women’s status. At the same time, a countermarch was organized in Casablanca by the Conservatives and Political Islamists opposing the women’s rights activists (Lemrini, 2004). The Rabatrally was large, but the opposition was strong as well. In fact, the opposition was extremely successful in mobilizing a broad support base as Raja El Habtirecalls, ‘Not only did they [conservative Islamists] rally their constituency and people in the party, but also the average Moroccan...women in jeans, marched against the plan [PANIFD]. It was not about covering up and it was not about belonging to a political party. It was about religion and the attack against their religion and they believed that they should make their voices heard.’[10] This discourse was very powerful in persuading the mainstream. In fact, the public resistance to the Moudawana reform was so strong at the time, some people wouldn’t even listen to women’s rights activists’ arguments (El Habti, 2007).Faced with shifting political opportunities and support for the legislative reform, the women’s movement continued organizing and began advocacy work.
Following the public demonstrations of women’s rights activists and their allies (modernist movements of Moroccan politics and civil society) and the Conservative Islamists’ attacks, King Mohamed VI decided in March 2001 to deal with the issue in his capacity as Amīr al-Mu'minīn (commander of the faithful). 40 important female leaders, from the women’s organizations andthe political and social movements in Morocco were invited to meet with the King and provide recommendations. In order to most effectively adapt to the new political developments, a group of activists formed a new coalition in 2001 called the Spring of Equality Coalition, (Printemps de l’Egalité).[11] More limited in scope, this smaller coalition aimed to establish a network to advocate for the reform of the Moudawana and more closely monitor the situation and its developments.In 2001, the Spring of Equality Coalition sent King Mohamed VI a memorandum with their propositions and visions for reform in the Moudawana.
The efforts of Spring of Equality Coalition, in tandem with past actions of the Network of Support for PANIFD, were successful in mobilizing an official response from the King as he created the Commission of Oulema, responsible for the reform of the Moudawana. The Oulema was composed of religious scientists, lawyers, sociologists and doctors and three members were women from highly respected professions. This Commission met regularly between 2001 and 2004. No immediate reforms were initiated in these early yearsdue to the extreme conservatism of certain members of the Commission. However the Commission’s work as well as mobilizationsby the Spring of Equality Coalitionhelped tokeep the Moudawana reform efforts and the feminists’ demands on the political and legal agenda. In 2003, King Mohamed VI nominated a new President to the Commission and a more open dialogue followed.
Nouzha Guessous, a physician, women’s rights activist, and a member of the Commission to Reform the Moudawana, describes the reform process. The Commission was to base their reform decisions on principles that King Mohamed VI recommended. Guessous (2007) highlights the King’s guidelines, ‘First, the reforms were to be coherent with the founding principles and spirit of Islam, or maqasid. Second, the reforms were not obliged to follow the Malikite school of legal tradition, but could invoke any type of ijtihad as long as it was in favor of the family and harmony. Third, we were to follow international obligations vis-à-vis human rights principles and universal human rights laws, which are recognized in the preamble to the constitution of Morocco... ‘[12]