Former Moroccan PM Sparks Controversy with Remarks on Gender Equality and Child Marriage

Abdelilah Benkirane criticized a French minister for minimizing the importance of the father in the family, stating that those who advocate equality between men and women want to "transform Moroccans into Europeans" and "eliminate sexual relations between spouses." "These couples have started to live for themselves, and they have started to solve their problems through pornography and individual pleasure," he said.

The former Prime Minister also questioned the ban on the marriage of minors, arguing that the difficult living conditions in rural areas can justify such unions, citing the example of a young girl who threatened to commit suicide if she could not marry the man she loved.

Benkirane also criticized the contradiction, he says, between the promotion of consensual sexual relations and the prohibition of the marriage of minors. He compared the situation in Morocco to France, where a femicide is recorded every one and a half days.

This is not the first time Benkirane has opposed gender equality. Last December, he had stated that women were the "real losers" of equality and that the European model was proof of this.