Morocco Considers Privatizing Conjugal Visits for Inmates Amid Resource Constraints

The idea is crazy! The "khalwa charîya" (legal intimacy) allowing a detainee (male or female) to have, among other things and especially, sexual relations with his (or her) legitimate spouse could well become an economic niche. The prison administration is thinking of attracting investors who, according to what is said at the moment, would have the possibility of building structures (outside prisons) to accommodate couples where one of the members is in prison (and who knows? maybe both). This with -and on condition of having- the authorization of the prison administration...

Mohamed Salah Tamek, the Delegate General for Prison Administration and Reintegration (DGAPR), mentioned this possibility at the end, on Thursday, of the 6th spring university organized in Béni Mellal. For him, the prison administration will no longer be able to offer this "right" to inmates, for lack of means. The latter is said, according to Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, to have declared: "It is an inaccessible luxury. And we should not even broach this kind of question given the very limited means of the prison administration".

He would have hinted, according to the same source, that involving the private sector in this "sector" is possible. That private investors would only have to build premises close to prisons, places where inmates could enjoy the "khalwa", or receive members of their family, he added.

A way to shirk responsibility for the future absence of an already permitted "luxury" or a way to introduce hoped-for privatization by attributing it to a new and supposedly logical incapacity? The "Khalwa Charîya" has existed since the 2000s... This is not something that someone has just asked for, a new proposal. And therein lies the nuance!