(ANSAmed) – RABAT, MARCH 8 – On International Women’s Day, Morocco’s feminist movement stressed Friday that a draft law to create a high authority to protect women’s rights and gender equality against all forms of discriminations in the North African country has not been set up yet. The authority has not been created in spite of the many dossiers presented by civil society, the president of the democratic association of women of Morocco (Afdm) Malika Jghima told local daily Au Fait. She said a memorandum drafted by her association in cooperation with the Feminist spring for democracy and equality was presented to the government’s general secretariat, to the secretary generals of the two chambers of parliament and to political parties.
However, no draft law so far has responded to these aspirations.
‘We have penned a memorandum on a draft law to create the high authority for parity after a number of round tables, seminaries and talks. The draft laws presented so far do not reflect the philosophy of the constitution’, she said.
The president of Afdm said she hoped the proposals presented by women’s rights associations would be taken into consideration. What associations are demanding, she said, ‘is an authority which is independent from political forces, whose mission is to promote, guarantee and control the application of article 19 providing for effective equality’.
At the beginning of February, lawmakers with the Authenticity and Modernity party presented a draft law to create the authority but a few days later the government rejected it, announcing that it was setting up a commission to examine all options to draft another bill.
For its part the National council for human rights in cooperation with UN-Femmes presented its first proposal of a high authority for equality, suggesting it should be financially independent and that the choice of its members should be based on their competence, engagement and credibility. (ANSAmed)
