Moroccan Divorced Mothers Fight Restrictive Child Guardianship Laws

As part of the national campaign "#BghathaLwa9t", a divorced woman and mother of three daughters recounts her suffering. For six years, she has been forced to ask her ex-husband and father of the children for permission to issue any type of administrative document for them. "It’s been six years that I’ve been trying to deal with this situation. I have to call my ex-husband and wait for his authorization to have documents like the birth certificate and the passport, knowing that it’s me who takes care of the education and the transmission of values to my three daughters," she confides in a video published on social networks and quoted by Le Matin.

Mounia recounts her indignation when she was asked for the father’s authorization or presence before filing the application for the national identity card (CIN) for one of her daughters. The woman had to seize the court and prove her refusal before her daughter’s file was accepted. "I don’t understand why this detour, knowing that the identity card is a constitutional right and why all this discrimination against the mother. For the passport, I can understand, but for the CIN, I really don’t see the importance of the father’s involvement," she laments.

Mounia launched a petition to bring about a reform of the Family Code on this discriminatory point towards divorced mothers, recalling that the latter can validly request administrative documents for their children without necessarily obtaining the father’s prior authorization. But this reality will not change until the Family Code (Moudawana) is revised. Article 230 of the Code grants the right of custody to the woman in case of divorce, and guardianship systematically to the father. An injustice they are asking to correct.

Several women like Mounia say they are "confronted with unjust articles of law," says Karima Rochdi, journalist and member of the board of the Collectif 490, initiator of the campaign "#BghathaLwa9t" whose objective is to raise awareness of the need to reform the Family Code and the Penal Code to end discrimination against women. For his part, Younes Naoumi, a lawyer at the Casablanca bar, believes that the reform of the Family Code is imperative, as it is unacceptable today that the mother does not have the right to make administrative decisions for her child.