Moroccan Woman Fights for Child Recognition After Controversial Religious Marriage

Since 2015, Leila and Mohamed Tahari had been living a perfect love story. Together, they had opted for the Fatiha marriage, before moving on to the legal marriage. Along the way, the young woman discovered that her fiancé was already married. That’s when everything became complicated for Leila. Following a complaint from Tahari’s wife, the police arrested her for adultery and blackmail. She had to pay a bail of 5,000 dirhams to be released after 48 hours of custody, according to Morocco World News.

Subsequently, Leila told the press that she had decided to leave the country. She went to live in Turkey with her sister, but she began to receive calls from Tahari and his sister begging her to return to Morocco. "He told me he was going to divorce and that he had problems with his wife," the young woman said.

According to her, Tahari had promised to marry her legally once his divorce was finalized. "He came to my house and we got engaged," she continued. During the engagement ceremony, the couple also performed a "Fatiha" marriage (not recognized by Moroccan legislation). From then on, Tahari was attentive to Leila. She gave birth to a daughter, now eight months old. It was only after that that she realized that Mohamed Tahari had no intention of legally marrying her or recognizing their child. She will appeal to the courts.

"I filed a lawsuit in October 2019, but the court told me I didn’t have enough evidence against him, because I only submitted photos from the engagement party," she recounted. The court asked Leila to bring twelve witnesses to corroborate her story due to the lack of evidence; which she has not been able to do so far. Her only wish, she said, is for her daughter to be registered in the civil registry.