Jun 28, 2019 | News, Publications, Reports, Thematic reports
In a report released today in Rabat, the ICJ called for the removal and eradication of legal obstacles and discriminatory judicial attitudes hindering women’s and girls’ ability to seek justice and redress for sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Morocco.
The ICJ’s report Obstacles to Women’s and Girls’ Access to Justice for Gender-based Violence in Morocco (available in English and Arabic) explores the various obstacles that women seeking justice in Morocco face, and addresses recommendations to the Moroccan government and judiciary with a view to improving access to justice and effective remedies for women and girls who are victims of SGBV.
“The Moroccan authorities should amend Law 103/13 and the Penal Code to ensure compliance with international human rights law and standards. Morocco’s Office of the Public Prosecutor and the country’s judicial authorities, including the High Judicial Council, should ensure that detailed guidelines on investigation and prosecution of SGBV crimes are developed and complied with, and that awareness-raising programmes be rolled out to counter judicial stereotyping and victim-blaming,” said Saïd Benarbia, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the ICJ.
Notwithstanding the recent adoption of Law 103/03 on combatting violence against women, SGBV has not been adequately addressed; it remains widespread in Morocco, with a profoundly detrimental human rights impact on victims and society at large. Law 103/3 fails to define rape in a manner consistent with relevant international law and standards, with the crime still addressed through the lens of morality and public decency, rather than as a violation of one’s bodily integrity and autonomy; Law 103/3 also fails to criminalize child and early marriage, lending support to this harmful practice.
In addition to discriminatory laws and procedures, women and girls seeking justice and redress as survivors of SGBV in Morocco have to face a judiciary that often harbours biased assumptions, and propounds negative gender stereotypes, including cultural norms rooted in patriarchy.
Against this background, the ICJ’s report analyses how exceedingly lenient sentences – for instance in cases of marital rape – and the heightened risk women and girls face of being charged with consensual extramarital sexual relations deter them from seeking justice and redress in case of physical and sexual abuse of which they may be victims, either at the hands of their husband or of individuals with whom they are not married.
To begin addressing women’s and girls’ predicament in these and other respects related to SGBV, the report calls on the Moroccan authorities to:
- Adopt legislation that recognizes one’s right to sexual autonomy, and that recognizes equal relationships as requiring free and full consent of both parties;
- Adequately define and fully criminalize through a gender-neutral definition acts of rape, including by criminalizing marital rape as a separate offence;
- Repeal Article 490 of the Penal Code criminalizing extramarital sexual relations, and ensure that Article 19 of the Family Code on the minimum age of marriage is stringently observed;
- Enact policies, legislative and procedural measures aiming at enhancing the effectiveness of judicial and other public sector services related to women’s access to justice, including enforcing spousal and child support, providing free legal assistance to victims of SGBV, granting protection orders, and adopting other urgent measures;
- Develop and enforce guidelines on investigating and prosecuting SGBV crimes;
- Develop a national protocol for SGBV-related medical, forensic examinations, and ensure forensic-testing services be available and affordable;
- Provide training and awareness-raising programmes aimed at countering judicial stereotyping, victim-blaming and other harmful practices.
Contact:
Saïd Benarbia, Director of the ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, t: +41.22.979.3817, e: said.benarbia(a)icj.org
Additional information:
ICJ Commissioner Martine Comte led the delegation that met with different Moroccan authorities, justice and civil society actors this week in Rabat in order to present ICJ’s report and discuss its findings and recommendations. The ICJ delegation met with Mr Mohamed Aujjar, Minister of Justice; Mr Taoufik El Maimouni, President of the Commission on Justice, Legislation, and Human Rights at the Chamber of Deputies; Mr Larbi Tabit, Secretary General at the Minister of Solidarity, Women, Family and Social Development; Ms Amina Bouayach, President of the National Human Rights Council and representatives of the judiciary and of the civil society.
Download:
Morocco-Obstacles GBV-Publications-Reports-Thematic report-2019-ENG (full report in English, PDF)
Morocco-Obstacles GBV-Publications-Reports-Thematic report-2019-ARA (full report in Arabic, PDF)
Morocco-Women HR report-News-2019-ARA (News story in Arabic, PDF)
Sep 17, 2018 | Events, Multimedia items, News, Video clips
This panel discussion was held today at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
The event addressed barriers for women accessing justice and look at ways to implement a women-centred approach to address these issues, considering ways to ensure that gender issues are robustly integrated into human rights investigations and judicial mechanisms and are properly implemented by the actors operating within these areas.
Discriminatory legislation can prevent women from accessing the justice mechanisms that should be available to them particularly where these same mechanisms may then be used against them, for example a woman afraid to report rape if she may be prosecuted for adultery.
In addition, mechanisms that are not inherently discriminatory may become so in the way they are interpreted and applied. Prejudices of judicial actors can constitute a major obstacle to women’s access to justice and undermine even the most protective of laws.
Moderator:
Saman Zia-Zarifi, Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists
Panellists:
• Lisa Gormley, Research Officer, Centre for Women, Peace and Security, London School of Economics and Political Science
• H.E. Athaliah Lesiba Molokomme, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and other International Organizations in Geneva, Botswana
• Justice Sanji Monageng, Former Justice and Vice President of the International Criminal Court and ICJ Commissioner
Event organized by the ICJ in co-ordination with the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN, and UN Women.
Watch the video:
https://www.facebook.com/ridhglobal/videos/565112000574216/
Side event ICJ WHR (flyer in PDF)
Jul 6, 2018 | Advocacy, News, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ today joined other NGOs in highlighting key outcomes of the 38th ordinary session of the UN Human Rights Council.
The statement, delivered by International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) at the end of the session, read as follows (text in italics was not read aloud due to the limited time available):
“Our organisations welcome the adoption of the resolutions on civil society space, peaceful protest, on violence against women and girls and on discrimination against women and girls and the Council’s rejection of attempts to impede progress on protecting civic space, peaceful protest and the rights to sexual and reproductive health.
On civil society space, the resolution recognizes the essential contribution that civil society makes to international and regional organisations and provides guidance to States and organisations on improving their engagement with civil society. On peaceful protest, it sets out in greater detail how international law and standards protect rights related to protests.
On violence against women and on discrimination against women, we consider that ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights are vital in efforts to combat violence and discrimination against women, online and offline, as well as to ensure targeted and specific remedies to victims. We appreciate that the work of women human rights defenders towards this is recognised.
We consider the adoption of the resolution on the contribution of the Council to the prevention of human rights violations as an important opportunity to advance substantive consideration on strengthening the Council’s ability to deliver on its prevention mandate.
Following challenging negotiations, we welcome the adoption by consensus of the resolution on human rights and the Internet, reaffirming that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, and calling on States to tackle digital divides between and within countries, emphasising the importance of tools for anonymity and encryption for the enjoyment of human rights online, in particular for journalists, and condemning once more all measures that prevent or disrupt access to information online.
We welcome continued Council attention to Eritrea‘s abysmal human rights record. This year’s resolution, while streamlined, extends expert monitoring of, and reporting on, the country and outlines a way forward for both engagement and human rights reform. We urge Eritrea to engage in long-overdue meaningful cooperation.
We welcome the renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Belarus under item 4 with an increased vote – as it is still the only independent international mechanism to effectively monitor human rights violations in Belarus – while remaining concerned over a narrative to shift the mandate to item 10 in the absence of any systemic change in Belarus.
We welcome the consensus resolution on the DRC, putting in place continued monitoring and follow up on the expert’s recommendations on the Kasais. However, given violations and abuses throughout several regions in the country, occurring against the backdrop of an ongoing political crisis, delayed elections, and the brutal quashing of dissent, we urge the Council to promptly move towards putting in place a country-wide mechanism that can respond to events on the ground as they emerge.
We welcome the strong resolution on Syria, which condemns violations and abuses by all parties, and appropriately addresses concerns raised by the COI about the use of chemical weapons, sexual and gender-based violence, and the need to address situations of detainees and disappearances. The Council cannot stay silent in the face of continued atrocities as the conflict continues unabated into its seventh year.
We welcome the joint statements delivered this session on Cambodia, the Philippines, and Venezuela. We urge Council members and observers to work towards increased collective action to urgently address the dire human rights situations in these countries.
On the Philippines, we emphasise that the Council should establish an independent international investigation into extrajudicial killings in the ‘war on drugs’ and mandate the OHCHR to report on the human rights situation and on moves toward authoritarianism.
The joint statement on Cambodia represents a glimmer of hope after the Council’s failure to take meaningful action against clear sabotage of democratic space ahead of elections. Close scrutiny of the human rights situation before, during and after the elections is paramount and the Council must take immediate action on current and future human rights violations in this regard.
We welcome the joint statement delivered by Luxembourg calling on the HRC President to provide oral updates on cases of alleged intimidation or reprisal, including actions taken, at the start of the Item 5 general debate of each Council session and also provide States concerned with the opportunity to respond.
Finally, the new Council member to replace the United States of America should demonstrate a principled commitment to human rights, to multilateralism and to addressing country situations of concern by applying objective criteria.
Signatories:
- Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
- The Association for Progressive Communications
- The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR)
- CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
- DefendDefenders (the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project)
- Human Rights House Foundation (HRHF)
- International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
- The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)
- International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
Jun 22, 2018 | Advocacy, Non-legal submissions
The ICJ today issued a statement on online violence against women and girls.
The statement was issued on the occasion of an interactive dialogue at the UN Human Rights Council, with the UN Working Group on discrimination against women. The ICJ was unable to read the statement due to the limited time provided for NGO statements. The statement is as follows:
“International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) welcomes the Report of the Special Rapporteur focusing on online violence against women and girls.
This is timely considering the noted rise in incidents of women being attacked online for expressing their opinions. In many countries, women political dissenters and women human rights defenders, who express their views through social media, face backlash from the subjects of their criticisms and their supporters. They are persecuted and are threatened with sexual and physical violence. Many of the attacks against them clearly embody harmful gender stereotypes.
The ICJ notes that these harmful stereotypes exist in many countries around the world and they hinder women from accessing justice. Unfortunately, technology and social media play a role in spreading and proliferating these harmful gender stereotypes.
The ICJ continues to assist in strengthening the capacities of formal justice actors such as judges to help women access justice and to eliminate gender stereotypes. In 2016, the ICJ engaged with judges from the Philippines, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Indonesia when they developed and adopted the Bangkok General Guidance for Judges in Applying a Gender Perspective.
The ICJ joins the Special Rapporteur’s recommendation for States to provide training for all justice actors, including judges, to ensure their ability to bring perpetrators of cases of online and ICT-facilitated violence to justice. The ICJ offers the General Guidance as a tool for justice actors to consider evidence in these cases without resorting to gender stereotypes and to decide cases based on the principle of equality under international human rights standards.
The ICJ shall persist in its work to enable women to access justice and to eliminate gender-based violence and discrimination.”
Mar 20, 2018 | Advocacy
The ICJ today submitted a briefing note to the Senate of Swaziland calling for its urgent adoption of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill 2015.
The ICJ’s briefing note concludes that enactment of the Bill is a matter required of the Kingdom of of Swaziland pursuant to its regional and universal human rights law obligations to criminalize and sanction the perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence. Compliance with those obligations is reinforced by the ‘Vision 2022’ of His Majesty King Mswati III, the aims and targets of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office and Swaziland’s consensus in the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The ICJ’s briefing note also concludes that, ten years after initial drafting of the Bill, its enactment during the current session of the Parliament of Swaziland is an essential step in complying with recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee and CEDAW Committee and as a means of discharging the commitments made by His Majesty’s Government during the 2016 Universal Periodic Review.
Swaziland-SOADVBill-Advocacy-ParliamentaryBriefingNote-2018-ENG (Parliamentary Briefing Note, in PDF)
