An attempt to marry a 14-year-old girl to an adult man shook Moroccan society last week, after pictures of the traditional engagement (with no legal value) spread on social media sites in a town in the Kenitra province, north of Rabat. After a complaint from the Federation of Women’s Rights League, the village wedding celebrated with the Fatiha prayer (a simple reading of a verse from the Holy Quran) shows the continuation of the marriage of minors under the age of 18 in Morocco. According to a recent report by the Supreme Judicial Council, judges approved 10,691 such marriages last year, 98% of which were for women, even though the Family Code has prohibited them as a general rule since 2004.
The case of the teenager from Kenitra, as reported by the newspaper the morningIt appears that resorting to unofficial weddings violates current legislation and violates women’s rights recognized in the 2011 Constitution (issued after the popular mobilization of the Arab Spring) and in international agreements that Morocco signed more than three decades ago.
During the reform phase at the beginning of his reign, King Mohammed VI promoted in 2004 the modernization of the Mudawwana or the Family Code in order to prevent the marriage of minors under the age of 18, although he left the door open to those whom judges authorized, without specifying a minimum age.
At the end of 2024, a new amendment to the legislation was approved on a royal initiative by the Council of Ulemas (Doctors of Islam) limiting the exception of judicial permission for small weddings to the age of 17, with a final objection to those of younger age. Nearly a year later, this reform has not been approved by Parliament.
Last October, women’s associations demanded that the “lukewarm reforms” of family law be stopped once and for all. The women gathered in the Moroccan Women’s Coordination, an alliance of more than 60 organizations that include prominent women from the academic, economic, and trade union worlds, are demanding legislation that “truly guarantees equality for female citizens,” without being limited to “mere technical amendments,” by abolishing the marriage of minors, according to a statement reported by the digital portal. Hespress.
The Feminist Front highlights Mohammed VI’s initiative to modernize the Code in his July 2022 Throne Speech, and the “important turning point” represented by the first reform called for by the King in 2004. Therefore, it hopes that the new Family Code will represent a new milestone and be fully in line with the 2011 Constitution and the United Nations conventions on the protection of women and children. The feminist statement warns, “History will determine whether, at this critical moment, we choose justice and progress or whether circumstantial (political) calculations and conservative commitments will have the upper hand.”
Less than a year before the next legislative elections, Moroccan parties began negotiations with the Ministry of Interior about organizing the elections. In the 2021 elections, the Islamists of the Justice and Development Party were removed from power after leading the government for the past decade. As for its current Secretary-General, former Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, his numbers in Parliament are low, as the number of seats in his party decreased from 125 to 13 seats. After returning to the presidency of the Justice and Development Party at the beginning of this year, Benkirane raised the banner of opposition to reform of the Moudawana in an attempt to regain the votes of conservatives and religious people in next year’s legislative elections.
As happened two decades ago, Mohammed VI was forced to conduct arbitration again in 2024, this time entrusting it to the opinion of scholars. It sought to prevent tension between conservative and Islamic sectors, opposed to family law reform, and secular civil society and the feminist movement – which demanded progress for women – from threatening the stability of the Maghreb state. Twenty years ago, Islamists called for massive demonstrations against amending the Mudawana, attracting more than a million participants in Casablanca.
Rejection front
Benkirane Islami continues to maintain the front of rejection of reforms promoted by the ruler of the Alawite dynasty, who holds the position of religious leader as Commander of the Faithful, a recognized authority under Article 41 of the current constitution.
The leader of the Justice and Development Party said last summer that “marriage is the foundation and center of young girls’ lives,” explaining that he intends to warn against what he considers “the phenomenon of excessive delay in the average age of marriage,” which in Morocco is about 26 years for women and 31 years for men. He also alluded to the proliferation of “female unity,” a derogatory reference to so-called spinsters, among women with academic qualifications who maintain their practical activity.
“I do not permit what God has forbidden, and I do not prohibit what God has permitted.” This was the message that Mohammed VI sent three years ago when launching the second reform of the family magazine. The king then encouraged the establishment of a committee composed of jurists, scholars, and representatives of the administration to collect amendments from parties, non-governmental organizations, and civil society, before submitting them to the opinion of Islamic scholars.
An exception to the rule
The Minister of Justice, Abdel Latif Wehbe, had insisted in December 2024, when presenting the main lines for reforming the Moudawana, on setting the legal age for marriage in Morocco at 18 years, with the only exception to the rule for celebrants starting at the age of 17, under strict conditions – judicial licensing, forensic medical examination, marital status investigation – that guarantee its exceptional nature.
Judges accepted 63% of the 16,985 applications for marriage permission for minors submitted in 2024, a rate similar to the immediately previous year, when 20,192 applications were registered. The majority of last year’s cases involved 17-year-old girls (supported by justice in 70% of petitions) and 16-year-old girls (53%). Licenses are significantly lower for those aged 15 (13%), and for those under that age they are very low (1.67%).
3.3% of marriages
The marriage of minors represents 3.3% of the 300,000 marriages celebrated annually in Morocco, without counting the cases of traditional informal weddings in the rural and mountainous interior regions, as well as on the outskirts of the demographic floods of major cities. Traditional marriage with Al-Fatihah may exceed 10% of registered connections, according to estimates from a study published by the newspaper If they die In 2020.
The latest report from the Supreme Judicial Council also shows that minors out of school obtain a higher percentage of judicial licenses (64%) than those who continue their studies (48%). 96% of applications are directed to women who do not practice any work activity. 78% also come from rural areas, where judges accept, on average, four out of five petitions.
Lawyer and feminist leader Jadea Rojani said in statements to the weekly: “As long as a girl has not reached the age of 18, which is the age at which she has the legal capacity to make her own decisions, any sexual act committed against her constitutes rape.” Hill Quill. “It is a violation permitted by the Code.”
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