Morocco Expands Rights for Children Born Out of Wedlock, Simplifies Paternity Recognition

To extend this information to all the services concerned, a circular to the walis and governors has been drawn up and sent in order to inform the presidents of the municipal councils and the civil status officers of the need to adopt the act of recognition for children born out of wedlock, when the recognition of paternity is done within the time limits. It is also a matter of simplifying the procedures, reports h24info.

This circular from the Wali Director General of Local Authorities, Khaled Safir, sets out a number of conditions. According to the same media, one of these conditions stipulates that the child can be registered and recognized by his mother without the father obtaining the family record book, since the conditions of marriage are not met, in accordance with Article 23 of the law on civil status.

However, the same circular states that the mother will not have the right to have a copy of the family record book where the child recognized by the father is listed if the marriage of the two parties is not recorded.

Moreover, the same family record book will not contain information about the said mother, since the family record book only contains information concerning the legitimate spouses.

These provisions are taken by the Ministry of the Interior in order to remove all the obstacles that prevent the granting of civil status documents to all citizens.

It should be noted that Morocco launched a registration campaign called "I am registered, therefore I exist" on January 15, 2018, targeting unregistered children.