"Bittersweet victory" for #Moroccan #women facing #DomesticViolence

6.3.18

"Bittersweet victory" for Moroccan women facing domestic violence: [en.qantara.de] The law passed in the Muslim country earlier this month criminalises "harassment, aggression, sexual exploitation or ill treatment of women", according to the women's ministry. But it failed to define domestic violence or explicitly outlaw marital rape said Rothna Begum, Middle East women's rights researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"While Morocco is going out of its way to pat itself on the back, they need to take far more reform to protect all women from violence," she told journalists.

By criminalising forced marriage and the expulsion of a spouse from the home, the law is a "bittersweet victory" for activists in Morocco who have been pushing for reforms for more than a decade, she added.