Source: Magharebia
Opposition activists with Morocco's Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) gathered in Casablanca recently to focus on women's rights.

The September 19th meeting stressed the need to protect civil rights gains by Moroccan women.

The national secretary of the organisation, Khadouj Slassi, said that all these results were a triumph of modernity, democracy, equality, and equal opportunities between men and women.

She accused the current Islamist-led government of destroying these gains by not implementing the requirements of the new constitution with regard to Chapter 19, which provides for equality between men and women and prohibits discrimination.

Slassi also stressed how USFP women confronted the decisions of the government led by the Justice and Development Party. She described it as unfair to women to deliberately link them to poverty and unemployment.

The first victims of rising prices or a reduction in jobs were women, Slassi said.

She warned that restrictions by the government were a threat to society, democracy, and women's rights. She called to confront all that hinders the development of women's participation in political decisions so that they can be fully prepared to enter the next legislative and local elections.

Rachida Allali, a member of the national bureau of the socialist organisation, said that women's hard domestic work went unrecognised and that the informal sector, which attracts most working women, still lacked legal or social protection.

Women's wages also remain one-third less than their male counterparts, according to Allali, who added that 90% of women worked without contracts that ensure their rights in social insurance and health coverage.

She also condemned the crimes of the community against women inside houses, on public streets, in the workplace, and at educational institutions.

Allali said that the struggle would continue until the adoption of public policies that protect the political, economic, and social rights of Moroccan women as well as employment policies geared for women to fight unemployment and empower them economically. She also stressed the need to ensure education for rural girls and help poor families.

For her part, Khadija Raji, member of the national bureau, said that women's rights were part of human rights, stressing that women's struggles for equality and freedom were a condition for progress.

The women's movement cannot advance without linking the struggle for democracy in its totality in order to build a civil state, and the struggle of women for gender-related demands, she added.

[Magharebia/Maria Tahiri] Activists with Morocco's Socialist Union of Popular Forces are pushing to preserve gains in women's rights.

The women gathered in this first preparatory meeting of the regional conferences asked the government to activate mechanisms for consultation with all active forces in the state, led by women's organisations. They also asked to be involved in the reports about the promotion of equality and against all forms of discrimination and protection against abuses of the right to equality and jobs.

• Morocco