rapists almost unpunished in Morocco

Maria Traspaderne |

Dar Hsain (Morocco) (EFE) . There lives S., the 13-year-old girl who has Morocco in suspense. And a few meters away, her rapists.

S. was just 11 when she was repeatedly raped by three men, became pregnant and had a baby. Overcoming the fear of reprisals, her father filed a complaint, but the sentence handed down a few days ago fell like a brick: between a year and a half and two years in prison for the aggressors.

The resolution that condemns Karim A. (36 years old), Abdeluahed B. (29 years old) and Yusef Z. (22 years old and Karim’s nephew) has raised indignation in the North African country and put what seems like a problem on the table endemic to justice: lax penalties applied to rapists.

According to a study prepared in 2020 by the feminist group Masaktach (I won’t keep quiet) analyzing 1,169 cases from the 21 first instance courts in Morocco, 80% of those convicted of rape receive a sentence of less than 5 years. In practice, they are in prison for an average of 3 years and 1 month.

Moroccan law stipulates between 5 and 10 years in prison for this crime, which rises to between 10 and 20 if the victim is a minor and up to 30 if she loses her virginity. The latter is the case of S., but a court in Rabat applied three extenuating factors and reduced the sentence to the minimum.

Two of the attackers, 30 meters away

S. gave birth to a boy a year ago, who is cared for by his parents and his grandmother in a region east of Rabat that lives, with great difficulty, from agriculture and livestock. Her family cultivates a couple of hectares with potatoes, pumpkins and cereals near an almost dry river.

Mohamed, his father, receives many calls these days from journalists who want to see him. He and little S. accompany EFE in the car on the way home and the cell phone does not stop ringing. The girl, in a pink tracksuit, flees from gaze with a shrunken body. When she speaks, her voice sounds gravelly like an adult, and she nervously touches her hands.

Upon arrival, two dogs bark, some chickens dodge the car and the grandmother comes out to say hello. Her name is Chaiat and she is, as she puts it, “over 50 years old”, but her wrinkles suggest many more. She and Mohamed, her son, explain that it all started in 2021, when his grandfather fell ill.

“(The rapists) came to see my father. They attacked the girl. Forty days after my father died, I went to the market and a man told me the story. I got dizzy, I didn’t know what to say. She is a little girl who does not know, ”he says.

She says that two of the attackers live 30 meters from her house. They are Karim and Yusef, uncle and nephew, who have seen S. grow. Karim’s mother, Mohamed says, was her father’s cousin. The third rapist lives 400 meters away.

A “rape culture”

S., says Mohamed, she is no longer the same. “She doesn’t know if she is a child or an adult, she lives in a vacuum. She doesn’t want to play with her brothers. And she has worsened since the sentence, which today begins to be reviewed in an appeal court in Rabat.

Mohamed will reach the end asking for justice for his daughter. It was he who denounced, going over the fear. “Their family pressured me not to go to the police, but I do not accept the sentence, I do not want it to be repeated. I do it for my children and the children of others.”

The case of S. shakes the country and the Minister of Justice, Abdelatif Uahbi, has promised tougher penalties. But for platforms like Masakatch, the problem starts with the police, prosecutors and judges.

According to Loubna Rais, one of its members, in Morocco there is a widespread “culture of rape” that “does not stop at the doors of the courts”, where the violence suffered by women and girls is trivialized, their suffering is minimized ”. “If the penalties were applied as provided for in the law, it would already be an achievement,” she says.

fear, hope and light

S.’s grandmother, dressed in a pink smock and apron, dreads the moment when the rapists are released from prison. “S. he is very afraid of them. She will die of a heart attack or throw herself down a well if she sees them,” she assures.

The girl, she says, is fine because she has been studying to be a hairdresser in Tiflet for four months, thanks to the help of the Insaf association. “I want to work in a salon,” she confirms hopefully, outlining a smile.

Away from her ears, asked about what happened, the grandmother’s head goes straight to when her great-grandson was born, a lively little boy with big eyes, “embarrassing” and who loves to play.

That day, he explains smiling, between tears and looking at the sky, electricity returned to the village after a year without power. “It is as if the light has brought us.”