Moroccan Fortune-Tellers Face Economic Downturn as Pandemic Keeps Expat Clients Away

Fortune-tellers are struggling with the health crisis related to Covid-19 that is dragging on. Sluggish sales, loss of customers, accumulation of debts and insecurity, reports the newspaper Assabah. The "chouwafates" profession is one of the most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Their profession is also affected by the closure of Moroccan airspace. The "chouwafates" have lost their generous clients, the Moroccans residing abroad (MREs), especially those living in the Gulf countries. The barmaids who are their no less generous clients are also very rare.

As a result, their daily revenues have fallen in two years: they have gone from 10,000 DH to 700 DH per day. The "chouwafates" give back part of this revenue to the young people of the neighborhood - around twenty years old - so that they ensure their security, as well as that of their clients. The latter are most often victims of sexual harassment. When interviewed, the same young people claim that they are paid in kind, in drugs and psychotropic substances, in cash (about 600 DH per day).