Progress Amid Resistance

324 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAworkforce. A 2004 study by the Women Business Managers’ Associationof Morocco (AFEM) identified 2,283 companies that were run or managedby women. 25The main cause of the vulnerability of working women is a lack of ed -ucation. According to the World Bank, 43.2 percent of adult women (age 15and above) were literate as of 2007, an increase from 39.6 percent in 2004.For adult men, the literacy rate was 68.7 percent in 2007, up from 65.7percent in 2004. 26 Women are legally free to access education at all levelsand are protected from gender-based discrimination within the educationsystem. No gender-based admissions requirements are in place, and menand women are able to attend the same classes and study the same subjectsonce enrolled. Yet girls continue to lag behind boys in enrollment rates, with44.8 percent of girls attending secondary school and 10.7 percent pursuinghigher education as of 2007, compared with 53.4 percent and 12 percent,respectively, for boys. 27 Social preferences tend to direct female studentstoward certain subjects, such as teaching and medicine, and a woman’s familyexercises a good deal of influence over her choice of field of study.The combination of poor education and societal pressure to work incertain professions or industries has led most working women to take uplow-paying jobs. For example, many women work in the textile industry(where they represent 71 percent of the workforce), the agriculturalsector (which employed 61.4 percent of working women as of 2007), oras domestic servants. Morocco’s failure to ratify the International LaborOrganization’s Convention 87 on freedom of association and collective bargaininghas permitted a hostile environment for organized efforts to de fendthese workers’ rights. 28 The 2003 labor code does not apply to do mestic andagricultural workers, meaning they do not have the right to form unions.Furthermore, social norms discourage women from working at night, andto the extent that trade unions are able to operate and secure better workingconditions and benefits, women are often excluded because unionactivities take place at night.Decree No. 2-56-1019 of 1957 prohibits women from performingdangerous work, barring them from some occupations, 29 and constructionand mechanical jobs are commonly reserved for men. However, someoccupations that have traditionally been assigned to men are beginning toopen to women, including law enforcement. Beyond such formal employment,large numbers of women are involved in informal economic activity