Sexual rights are still a taboo subject in Morocco, both legally and socially. Marital rape is not criminalized in Morocco to this day. The Moroccan criminal law criminalizes rape, a crime that is punishable by imprisonment ranging from five to ten years. Marital rape is however not adressed in the rape law.
In the event that a husband has sex with his wife without her consent, the wife is only entitled to demand a divorce on the grounds of disagreement and abuse, as stipulated by the Moroccan family code.
Research on the subject of marital rape tends to show that educated and young women in Morocco counter the issue of marital rape differently than older and uneducated women. However, while these women counter the issue in different ways it does not mean that either group accepts the crime of marital rape.
The women´s resistance strategies can be divided into three different sections:
The override strategy: Some of the women interviewed said that they resorted to the elders in the family to turn them against the husband in the hope that this will force the husband to change. Among 20 interviewees, 11 expressed resorting to this solution.
One of the interviewees said: “I threatened that I would tell his mother if he forced me to have sex again, but he did not care. He probably thought that I would not tell her about our intimate life, so he did it again. As we were staying with his mother, I immediately went up to her room and told her everything in front of him. He could not raise his head after this.”
The circumvention strategy: Some of the women interviewed said that they deliberately try to look ugly to keep the husband away. “When my husband enters the house, I always wear bad-looking clothes or pretend that I am menstruating,” said one interviewee. Another stated: “I refuse to be naked when I’m in bed with my husband. Sometimes I pretend to have fallen asleep with the kids or go to bed early.”
The direct resistance strategy: This means resorting to legal action and demanding divorce. In this category, we oftentimes find well-educated women who are financially independent. However, taking legal action can be a difficult and painful process with a lot of ambiguity involved.
In this article, based on research available, we´ve looked at the legal and social aspects linked to marital rape. Morocco has a long way to go on the issue. First and foremost, marital rape must be outlawed in Moroccan law.
There are also positive signs. Civil society organizations in Morocco are pushing hard to raise awareness on marital rape and lobbying the government to adhere to international conventions on women´s rights.
