New York Times (February 1, 1999)

After the Rape, a Lifetime of Shame. It's Morocco.
By MARLISE SIMONS

The life of Rashida, a shy young Moroccan woman, has a medieval ring to it.
She sleeps on the floor of a small, dank room inside the compound of a
fish cannery in Agadir. She may be summoned to work at any hour, depending
on when the fishing fleet comes in.

For less than five dollars a day, she plods in a big rubber
apron surrounded by a piercing stench, scaling and gutting sardines
and anchovies. But Rashida, who is 23, considers herself lucky.

"Even if I don't sleep enough, I have a place to stay," the
young woman said, her eyes downcast, but her voice rising with
pride. "And I earn enough to feed my baby."

Rashida is an unmarried mother, which has made her life
precarious and turned her into an outcast in Morocco's conservative
Islamic society.

In general, women are treated as inferior under Morocco's
Koranic laws: they are legal minors, inherit only half a share,
need permission from a male relative to marry and can be repudiated
by their husbands. But a woman who has a child out of wedlock is
treated with even more disdain.

Pregnant girls, even when they are very young or have been
raped, are commonly thrown out by their families, who say they
bring dishonor. The young women's brothers sometimes threaten to
kill them. Government or religious charities provide no support to
women they consider tainted with sin.

Abortion is forbidden by law, although a rich and educated woman
can usually buy one secretly.

Rashida, who would not give her last name, said she was raped by
the son of the family for whom she worked as a maid. They dismissed
her. She did not know where to get an abortion. Her father and her
brothers had told her not to return home. Before finding work at
the fish cannery, she often slept in the street and begged.

"In many Islamic countries people deal with unwanted pregnancy
by pretending it doesn't exist," said Wassyla Tamzali, a
specialist in women's rights at Unesco, the U.N. Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization. "It's a taboo subject."

In Morocco, government officials say they have no statistics
about single mothers or illegitimate children and they provide no
services for them. But social workers say that as the country is
urbanizing and more young women have come to the cities, the number
of poor single mothers has grown. They say that because the women
and their children are ostracized, some are forced to become
beggars or prostitutes.

It is not unusual for police to find a baby on the street or in
a park. Last year, newspapers in Casablanca reported that the
police had found 364 abandoned newborn babies the previous year.

It is also common for single mothers to leave their babies
behind when they leave the hospital. Agadir's main hospital
currently houses about 60 abandoned children, according to a local
official. Under Koranic law, adoption does not exist so unwanted
children often end up in state orphanages.

"It's one of the dark sides of Islam," said Majouba Edbouche.
"The government preaches Islam and charity all the time, but there
is all this hypocrisy about unmarried mothers, as though they were
prostitutes."

Mrs. Edbouche operates a day care center in Agadir for children
of poor, single mothers, a rare institution, which is financed by a
Swiss foundation.

The single mothers she meets, she said, often are young,
illiterate farm girls who were sent to the cities to work as maids,
often when they were as young as 8 or 10 years old.

"Really the parents are to blame, or the men who seduced them
or raped them," said Mrs. Edbouche. "But the man is never held
accountable. The woman carries all the blame and shame."

Nouzha Skali, a pharmacist who has helped create a legal aid
center for women, said the police rarely take an interest in rape
complaints. "Police treat the raped woman as the guilty party,"
she said. "They will say, 'Were you dressed properly?' or, 'What
were you doing on the street anyway?' "

Fatima Zohra Toufik, who works in a bakery, has a 7-month-old
son whom she has been trying to name since he was born. Her
boyfriend, the father of the child, refuses to marry her or to give
the child his name. In order to give the child her own last name,
she needs permission from her father or her oldest brother. Both
have refused.

"My father screamed, 'I never want to see you or that *******
child again,' " she said, sobbing as she told her tale. "My
brother said he will kill me and the baby if I ever come home
again." So her son's birth certificate says: Wadia, father
unknown. There is no last name.
SOS
In the fish cannery where Rashida works, almost 50 women live in
the squalid factory dormitory. Most are single, many have children.
The women would not give their last names, shrugging off the request as
irrelevant.

Zara, 45, shares a room with five other women and three of their
children, among them her daughter Hariba, 22, who was born here at
the cannery and also works here. "Hariba is the daughter of a
policeman who took me by force at the cemetery," Zara said matter
of factly.

Rashida herself takes great pride in Hiba, her 4-year-old
daughter. In her cheerless existence -- she was sent away to become
a maid at age 6 -- the little girl is her joy.

One of Rashida's few possessions is a photograph of Hamedi Rogi,
the son of her employer, who raped her twice and left her with
child. One day, she said, she will show her fair-skinned daughter
the picture of the light-skinned man who is her father.

The other day, Rashida recalled, her little daughter asked:
"Mama, why am I white? Why are you so black?"

- end -



This post has been edited by StevenL: Dec 13 2010, 12:05 AM

30? 28 30, u betul ka?

These girls are bladdy fair & pretty, above all, not demanding compared to local NL