Zekri, on the yihab: "There are so many things wrong that focusing energy on a piece of handkerchief is ridiculous"

The Doctor of Law and researcher in gender studies analyzes the main struggles of the feminist movement in Morocco and the risks in the face of the rise of Islamism

June 21 2025 (08:14 WEST)
 S8E4801 Mejorado NR
S8E4801 Mejorado NR

"Was it easy to get to this point? Will we have it forever? We must continue fighting so that new generations do not have to start from scratch," warns Houda Zekri, a doctor in Law and researcher in studies of gender, migration, and international family law during an interview with La Voz.

"Amnesia is the worst thing a society can have, we must pass on the message because at any moment a madman comes to power and we go backwards," she warns about the importance of fighting to maintain the rights achieved and continue progressing. "Now young women don't want to say they are feminists, because feminism is not in fashion," she continues, on her first time on the island.

During the interview, Zekri explains what the main struggles of the feminist movement in Morocco are, from achieving joint custody of minors to the battle to eradicate child marriage, to combating sexual violence. In addition, she analyzes the conservative movements that represent a regression of rights at a global level.

The gender justice expert has visited Lanzarote to participate in the conference Violence against women: a global perspective. Feminism without Borders, reflections from Spain to territories in conflict, organized by the Mararía Association and Equipo Europa Canarias.

 

 

The Family Code, civil laws based on Islam

Unlike Spanish legislation, in Morocco one of the most serious problems is that there are still no fixed statistics or a comprehensive law on violence against women. In Spain, since 2003, women murdered by their partners or ex-partners have been counted, in 2004 a Comprehensive Law was approved, and since 2013 the number of minor victims of vicarious violence has been published, tools that allow analyzing individual cases in a social context and applying measures in this regard.

"What Morocco should learn from Spain, although the situation here is not idyllic, is the political decision to make visible everything that happens to women with respect to violence," she says. In the African country, only Law 103.13 exists, created through a reform of some articles of the Penal Code, but she denounces the lack of a gender and parity approach in the regulation.

In the last eight years, the arrival of a conservative Islamist party in the country has hindered the work of the fight for gender equality. "They are very strong in indoctrinating young people," she warns.

Currently, the rise of political Islam in countries such as Afghanistan, where the Sharia Law has been applied, has led to the total repression of women, keeping them away from institutes and universities, prohibiting them from speaking in public, working, and leaving home without a burqa and a man to accompany them. While in one part of the Muslim world a Taliban dictatorship is emerging, in others, they are trying to stop the advance of jihadism and achieve more social rights.

Feminist groups in Morocco are fighting to modify the Family Code, known as Mudawana, which forms a set of laws that regulate relationships between people with some type of kinship and where rights such as marriage, divorce, or custody of minors are collected.

This code is based on the Malaki school of thought, one of the four interpretations of the Koran in the Muslim world, and the Sunni branch of the religion (the majority in Arab countries). "The Family Code, which was created quickly in a few months and with the aim of being temporary, has been in force for so many years that Moroccan citizens already believed that it was part of the Koran and that it is untouchable," says the researcher.

The first reform of this code, in the nineties, allowed to show the population that it was indeed modifiable. Then, in 2004 it was reformed again and now the feminist movement is battling to achieve new advances.

Despite the resistance of conservative sectors of society, the Moroccan feminist movement managed to modify this law in 2004 so that women did not need the authorization of their legal representative (parents, siblings, and even children) to marry. "When it came out, they said it was an attack against the Moroccan family, that women were going to go crazy and none of that happened," Houda Zekri recalls now.

In 2022, the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, launched a new reform of the Mudawana to update this law that covers child marriage, polygamy, and gives parental authority of minors to their fathers, while the mother only has guardianship and custody. For the moment, none of these reforms has gone ahead. Currently, the fact that women do not have parental authority over their children "creates unlimited pressure and institutional and economic violence on women, even after divorce," adds Zekri.

In this line, Moroccan feminisms are fighting against child marriage, since despite the fact that the legal age is 18 years (after the 2004 reform), there are exceptions in which a judge can authorize the marriage of a minor. According to data from the country's Prosecutor's Office, in the year of the pandemic, Moroccan judges approved 13,000 child marriages, 68% more than the previous year.

Zekri explains that these cases are more frequent in the most rural areas of the country, where minors have more difficult access to education and where there is more poverty.

In this sense, to the old forms of violence against women, is added digital violence, which has been established in Morocco, as in the rest of the world, as another form of violence, affecting more girls, adolescents, and young people.

"The obstacles to reporting are enormous and there is very little knowledge of the rights of victims," Zekri highlights. In Morocco, this type of case becomes "a taboo, people do not report, minors need support and the presence of adults to be able to report and everything becomes a block of obstacles that prevents victims from seeking protection from the State."

 

A feminist movement for the Muslim world

In the eighties, Moroccan feminism did not contemplate "internal debates." "There was a struggle, where you were or had to be a feminist with a European mentality or you were a Muslim," Zekri adds. Currently, the feminist movement has created a new path, known under the name of the third way, which claims a feminist movement away from the universality of Western feminism and opens a debate on the reinterpretation of sacred texts with a gender perspective.

That is why the feminist movement has been renamed feminisms, in the plural, as a sign of resistance to French colonization and the struggle of Arab women for an increase in rights that fits their religious values. "We are convinced that an impressive proportion that we have in laws is a patriarchal creation and interpretation of religion," she adds.

In this struggle, Moroccan feminism has had great references, such as the writer Fatima Mernissi (1940-2015) or the feminist doctor and activist Asma Lamrabet (1961). "The positive thing is that now you can debate with conservatives because we are talking about the same sources, we are sure that we do not agree on many things, but at least it is the same discourse," Zekri continues.

 

 

The reception of migrants in Morocco

Morocco is one of the main transit points for people from sub-Saharan countries who try to reach the Canary Islands in precarious boats. Within its borders, human rights violations occur, where migrant women suffer sexual assaults and a situation of economic imbalance, while their opportunity to reach Europe.

"Women are doubly vulnerable than men, even though they are all going through very difficult situations," says the expert in gender and migration. They face sexual risk, the lack of protection from a State, their environment, their family, or their community. "Women in transit are added the risk of being raped by their fellow travelers or making them work for them," she explains. Likewise, women are the object of human trafficking networks.

 

"There are so many deep and more serious problems in the world that focusing energy on a piece of cloth is ridiculous," denounces Houda Zekri

The use of the veil, the tip of the iceberg

For the professor, the use or not of the veil is "a superfluous debate." "We have to claim and guarantee the freedom of women to put it on or not and to dress as they please," so that "wearing it or not, does not have to be a marker that that woman is able to work or lead a normal life."

In this way, she points out that the restrictions in France, where it is forbidden to go to school with a hijab, the headscarf that covers the hair but leaves the face uncovered, or its use in the Olympic Games is for Houda Zekri "an exaggerated thing," which distorts attention. "There are so many deep and more serious problems in the world that putting energy into a piece of cloth is ridiculous," she adds.

Zekri explains that in Morocco its use is not mandatory, but there are family and environmental pressures to use it or to dress in a more demure way. "Pressures within the family there are, women who have put on the veil and continue to use it by pressure, yes." For her, the use of the headscarf is the roof of many other forms of repression, among them, the lack of economic independence of women.

Another important point is that within the country there is no state funding to promote feminist projects, but they depend on European and foreign funding, as well as the work of Non-Governmental Organizations.

The professor Houda Zekri. Photo: Juan Mateos.
The professor Houda Zekri. Photo: Juan Mateos.

 

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