Morocco Faces Alarming Rise in Child Marriage Requests, Justice Minister Reports

In Morocco, child marriage is far from being a thing of the past. This is evidenced by the statements of the Minister of Justice. According to Mohamed Benabdelkader, out of the 32,000 requests recorded last year, only 19% were rejected by the judges. Thus, the remaining 81% will have been approved by these magistrates.

To curb this trend, the kingdom has raised the legal age of marriage to 18 years old. Yet, in practice, the law is not always respected. Thus, 98% of these marriage requests are concentrated in rural areas. Here, "many families are content with a religious commitment, without always formalizing the consensual act of marriage, as stipulated by the Family Code".

The "Droit & Justice" Association is conducting a national study on the issue of child marriage. According to them, the phenomenon is reaching alarming proportions. From 18,000, it went up to 35,479 cases in 2015, they say, adding that these statistics declared by the Ministry of Justice, "do not include other forms of marriage, namely customary marriage (to the fatiha), and marriage by contract".

For the Minister of Justice, even if a decline in requests for marriage of minors, filed with the courts, has been observed, from 2015 to 2018, "the Family Code needs to be reviewed".