Progress Amid Resistance

326 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAF The government should work in cooperation with women’s NGOs toeducate and inform women about their rights under existing inheritancelaws, and provide women with legal assistance to defend thoserights when necessary. Judges should be trained to more actively protectwomen’s rights in inheritance and other property cases.F The government, in consultation with women’s NGOs, should reviseeducation methods and materials to ensure that they incorporate conceptsof gender equality and exclude negative stereotypes.F The government should enact legislation to protect domestic servants byregulating working hours and conditions, guaranteeing health care, andallowing worker organization. Labor unions and NGOs should developadditional services for these workers, including personal-fi nance training,temporary shelters for abused women, and job-placement assistancefor those in untenable working situations.F Further efforts to extend maternity leave, provide childcare, and protectfemale employees from sexual harassment in the workplace shouldbe accompanied by safeguards against gender-based discrimination inhiring and promotion. In addition to stricter laws on this issue, the governmentshould provide effective complaint and adjudication mechanismsto encourage compliance.F Women rights NGOs should develop grassroots projects that specificallyaddress the needs of domestic and factory workers.POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIC VOICEMoroccan women have come a long way in the field of politics. In the lastdecade, many have been appointed as cabinet ministers, diplomats, andjudges, and thanks to implementation of a quota system, the number ofwomen in the 325-seat lower house of Parliament rose from two in 1997to 34 after the 2007 elections. 32 Another quota rule recently boosted women’srepresentation in local government as well. However, more than fivedecades after independence, women’s participation in political life is stillhampered by sociocultural constraints, including the conservative notionthat women’s voices are awrah (not to be exposed in public, as with certainparts of the body). In addition, patriarchal and undemocratic structureswithin political parties tend to exclude women and youth, limiting theiraccess to politics. 33