Women's Empowerment and the Feminization of Poverty among

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IV. SITUATING THE CASE STUDY IN THE MOROCCAN EXPERIENCEThis chapter provides analysis of the current situation in the Kingdom of Morocco: legal,socio-economic and cultural. It allows for context-specific insight of the implications of Moroccanattempts to change deeply entrenched inegalitarian structures within these three realms. This willthen facilitate an examination in the following case study of the experience of challenging stigmaamong female-headed households in Taroudannt.Legal situationIn order to determine the legal prospects of Islamic liberalism in a state, it is crucial toconsider the special circumstances in the process of state formation in a state-by-state approach,such as for the Moroccan monarchy released from French colonial rule in 1956 (Delacoura, 2007:197). On an international legal level, ratified treaties that are duly incorporated by the OfficialBulletin publication then become integral to Moroccan domestic law, both public and private – theCEDAW, for example (Abiad, 2008: 103). As Islam is the official religion of Morocco per Article 6in the national constitution, Morocco’s judiciary system specifically follows Islamic jurisdiction setout by Shari’a 7 law only in family matters according to the Sunni Maliki school of Islam (Hashemi,2008: 17, 82).In an oversimplification, the Maliki conception of law sources the Qur’an 8 , the hadith 9 , theijmaa 10 , and the qiyas 11 in a combination of both tradition and reasoned opinion to varying degreesfrom the other three Sunni schools to establish a consensus (Nasir, 2002: 19). Every field of law –international, constitutional, administrative, criminal civil, personal, family – and human action canbe evaluated by the Shari’a as commanded, recommended, left legally indifferent, reprobated, ordivinely forbidden (Anderson, 1957: 488). Law has many implications for political and socialdevelopments over which Shari’a constantly compromises in modern reforms (Ibid.: 514).Evidence of the role of Islam in the Moroccan legal system is its high normative status and topposition in the hierarchy of norms per Article 19 of the national constitution, which accords theKing the right and duty to ensure the observance of both Islam and the Constitution as the‘Commander of the Faithful’ (Abiad, 2008: 50).7Shari’a is Muslim law under Islamic jurisprudence.8Qur’an is the Islamic book of faith.9Hadith is the tradition of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed.10Ijmaa is the Islamic consensus of interpretation.11Qiyas is the Islamic analogy of the holy teachings of the Prophet Mohammed.17
Despite the very recent historical reality of Islamic jurisprudence in Morocco, the classicaltheory of Shari’a underlines the historical thinking of modern Moroccans and greatly influenced theregion’s postcolonial establishment and development of political, economic and socialinfrastructures (Tshibangu, 1993: 520). As Moroccan Shari’a developed in a late and isolated stagerelative to the rest of the Islamic world, it recognized “that the actual conditions did not allow thestrict theory to be translated into practice, that it was better to try and control the practice as muchas possible than to abandon it completely….to maintain a kind of protective zone around thetheory” (Schacht, 1960: 526). The fundamental implication of this has been a jurisprudence thatfocuses on method more than positive solutions. When reformist ‘Allal al-Fasl asserted in 1949during French colonial rule that Moroccan legislation required a basis in both Islamic and Frenchlaw principles, he urged the King and religious scholars to agree on an Islamic Code of Morocco:To take it as the essential basis of our future legislation means helping tosafeguard it, and means giving to our country a code which is adapted to oursecular interests without contradicting our religion nor the needs, taken intheir widest sense, of modern progressive spirit in the most highly civilizedcountries (Ibid.: 542). 12The commission assigned the responsibility to combine the duality of Islamic and French lawprinciples then issued Moudawana by a Royal Decree to an independent Morocco in 1957 as “anevaluation of modern social life and of modern legal thought from an Islamic angle” (Ibid.: 544-5).The inclusion of a Shari’a family code into Morocco’s secular legal system explains certainvariations in application of the prescribed law. Since Moudawana was established in 1957, demandsfor reform have twice grown loud from a women’s empowerment movement that began in the early1980s (Abiad, 2008: 121). The Union de l’Action Féminine and the National CoordinationCommittee for Changes to the Moudawana and for the Defence of the Rights of Women launched acampaign together in 1992 for empowerment of married women who were denied the right todivorce and compelled to follow the decision-making under the guardianship of their husbands aswell as for empowerment from rules like the marital age being 18 years for men but 15 for girls(Ibid.). A commission of Islamic jurists appointed by King Hassan II heard these demands of theMoroccan women’s associations, but produced very few Moudawana reforms in 1993 that changedits actual substance due to the condition that Islamic norms could not be compromised (Ibid.).Moroccan NGO Collectif 95 Maghreb-Egalite produced “One Hundred Measures” as achallenge to the discriminatory Moudawana with arguments based upon four sources of authority:12Originally from Risalat al-Maghrib (7/11/1949); French translation in Échanges (Rabat), French Series, No. 8,25/12/1949; English translation from Schacht (1960) based on the French.18
Page 4 and 5: I. INTRODUCTIONAttitudes about gend
Page 6: II. ANALYSIS OF EXISTING LITERATURE
Page 9 and 10: In recognition of the importance of
Page 11 and 12: women’s empowerment, the feminiza
Page 13 and 14: “Although women are often victims
Page 15 and 16: III. METHODOLOGYThis chapter begins
Page 17 and 18: Phase IOf the four phases of my pri
Page 19: acutely aware of the limitations of
Page 23 and 24: (Ibid.: 716). In sum, de jure Mouda
Page 25 and 26: change which requires a period of a
Page 27 and 28: Cultural situationAnalyzing Morocca
Page 29 and 30: defiance of tradition, and society
Page 31 and 32: there is faith in the city’s life
Page 33 and 34: originally from Agadir, Ouled Berhi
Page 35 and 36: Dwyer’s observation that “a str
Page 37 and 38: Social networksSocial networks can
Page 39 and 40: dimension. When asked to identify h
Page 41 and 42: VI. CONCLUSIONThe participatory res
Page 43: BIBLIOGRAPHYAbiad, N. (2008) Sharia
Page 46 and 47: McIlwaine, C. (2012c) “Women’s
Page 48 and 49: InterviewsEch Chenna, Aicha, Presid
Page 50: Appendix B - Focus groupAimTo find

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