Women's Empowerment and the Feminization of Poverty among

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Along with the other 56 Muslim states, Morocco ratified the United Nations Convention onRights of the Child (CRC) as entered into force in 1990 as an international framework to ensurechildren’s rights to survival and development as well as women’s empowerment:The concept of indivisibility of socio-economic and civil and politicalrights, so crucial to affording opportunity to women in all phases of the lifecycle is thus established. This in turn leads to the truly remarkableconclusion that, were (girl) children afforded equal rights from birth to thefirst 18 years of their life, their rights as women would automatically follow(Ali, 2000: 217).Morocco entered a reservation to the CRC regarding Article 14’s guarantee of freedom of religionmainly due to its incompatibility with Moudawana, which binds any child of a Muslim to be aMuslim (Detrick, 1992: 228). 14Deeper implications of Morocco’s legal situation for women’s empowerment aredemonstrated by the state party to the 1986 Working Group that officially blocked a proposal of the1984 Working Group and Informal NGO Ad Hoc Group – recognition that children born out ofwedlock should enjoy equal rights with children born in wedlock (Ibid.: 148-9). Morocco objectedto this protection under Article 4 due to the inability of paternity of an ‘unlawful’ child to beestablished under Shari’a (Hashemi, 2008: 232). The CRC recommended that the other Muslimstates with reservations use Moroccan lawmakers’ successful example of “modifying problematicreligious traditions” to find legislative means to allow the Shari’a interpretation to be waived toclose the gap between family code and the CRC (Ibid.: 253). The larger implication of Morocco’sobjection lies in the CRC’s concern about discriminatory violations of the rights of both femalesand children born out of wedlock under family codes:In those states where such a mother is subject to the threat of beingpenalized or the child is subject to discriminatory treatment, both child andmother are discriminated against twice over. They are subject topunishment, legal disability in matters of personal status and, in addition,social stigmatization (Ibid.: 237).This proposal regarding children born out of wedlock was not incorporated without the requiredconsensus; therefore, girls (and boys) and lone mothers still face stigma by lacking legal personalstatus (Detrick, 1992: 150). Ultimately, de jure reform – compensatory legislation, policydocuments, international conventions – are “not a sufficient condition for the realization of social14All reservations and points of debate considered and adopted by the drafting body Working Group on the Open-Ended Question of a Convention on the Rights of the Child from 1979 to 1988 are included in Detrick’s work (1992).21
change which requires a period of acclimatization to legislation, during which attitudinal shifts mayoccur” (Billson and Fluehr-Lobban, 1988: 379).Socio-economic situationIn the Moroccan socio-economic situation, female-headed households often face segregationfrom work in the public sphere, particularly in rural Morocco. Before 2004, Moudawana declared ita man’s duty to provide for his wife, even if she is capable of providing for herself. Thus, it isnoteworthy that between 1971 and 2002, the percentage of women in the Moroccan labor forcenearly doubled from 12.6% to 24.9% (Albert 2007: 11). Again, women legally have equal rights asmen to education and work, according to Article 13 of the national Constitution; however, areligious stigma of women in public is practiced in the socio-economic realm of the public sphere(Ibid.: 52, 59). Two Moroccan political scientists at Mohamed V University in Rabat link ruralwomen’s constraint of a lack of education and training to condemnation on the bottom rung ofsociety (Kerzazi and Agoumy 2004: 11). 15 Yet, the authors contend that Moudawana reforms marka turning point in the uncertain futures of lone mothers as their legal status are now considered aspart of the family unit and its stability, although more investment in service and industry is neededto empower rural women to diversify their livelihoods (Ibid.: 24, 91).There has been an increase in female market vendors over the past two decades, and most ofthese women “are divorced, widowed, or abandoned and are the main income-earners in theirhouseholds….Any woman that must support herself through hard work or potential public exposurebecause of an absent or inept male guardian is socially stigmatized” (Ibid.: 62). At the turn of themillennium, 71.17% of female heads of household were widows and divorcées – 12% of totalfemale population compared to 1.6% of total male population – with the proportion of unemployedwomen who are female heads at 56.9% (CERED, 1998: 8-9). Urban women can find more workopportunities afforded by the anonymity of the city, whereas rural women are still held to the normof full-time farm-work, earning little to no income” (Kerzazi and Agoumy, 2004: 63). In southernMorocco, rural women are expected to perform unpaid work outside of the home along withhousework. Women who are at least 15 years-old are considered inactive if they do not, resulting inseasonal work that is rarely a managerial position (Ibid.: 89).If their daytime hours are understood properly, rural women contribute considerably to theeconomic development of southern Morocco, as the Moroccan government publicly recognized inan announcement by Mr. Menmahi, President of the Moroccan Association for the Promotion ofRural Women, at the international forum of female solidarity in Casablanca in 2000 (Ibid.: 7).15All references to Kerzazi and Agoumy (2004) are translations to English by the researcher from French original.22
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 and 20: acutely aware of the limitations of
Page 21 and 22: Despite the very recent historical
Page 23: (Ibid.: 716). In sum, de jure Mouda
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

Women's Empowerment and the Feminization of Poverty among

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