Morocco’s Collectif 490 Pushes to Repeal Law Criminalizing Premarital Sex

Launched under the hashtag #STOP490, this new campaign aims to gather the four thousand signatures necessary (only those registered on the electoral lists can, according to the law, sign it...) so that Parliament finally takes up the issue of individual freedoms. Already three million views generated. Narjis Benazzou, president of the ’Hors-la-loi’, explains the merits of their fight. "Our detractors accuse us of encouraging unbridled sexual relations; on the contrary, we are asking for prevention and education instead of repression, as well as a discussion around the notion of consent," she assures the site marieclaire.fr.

"Thanks to social networks, we are reaching all segments of society, especially young people, and we are collecting a lot of testimonies, as during our #MeTooUniv action to alert on the many cases of harassment of female students. The law is supposed to protect victims, not make them feel guilty, while so many women do not dare to denounce the sexual assaults they are victims of," she adds.

According to Sonia Terrab, co-founder of the Collectif 490, the law forces some young people to leave the kingdom. "Like all girls, I had to lie about who I was seeing, what I was doing, otherwise I would never have been able to live the life I wanted. Many young people can no longer stand these imposed lies and prefer to leave the country, to love elsewhere in freedom, to live their intimacy and their choices without risking prison. Far from the gaze of society and their family, in a country where it is forbidden to rent an apartment as a single person and where one must show a valid marriage certificate to the receptionist if one wants to meet one’s boyfriend or girlfriend in the anonymity of a hotel, to spend a weekend or a vacation together."

Article 490 is "a Sword of Damocles" that many Moroccan women feel over their heads permanently. Inès (the name has been changed) recounts her weekend in Marrakech with a lover. "We had the means to afford a large hotel that was less concerned about unmarried couples," she says. "Yet, when I heard knocking on the door of the room, I immediately escaped by jumping from the first floor balcony into the garden. I was convinced that it was the police coming to arrest me because they had discovered that we were not a married couple. It was the maid... But "conditioned" by the 490, I was convinced that I was going to be arrested."