Zainab told ‘Sky News Arabia’: “In my own experience, the fact that the father prevents his son from traveling outside the country or from entering one of the schools chosen by the mother is often motivated by “revenge” and is not tied to the interests of the son.”
The spokesperson believes that the guardianship of the children must be attached to the custody granted by law to the mother, who takes care of the children and their education after the divorce.
In interaction with the request of Zainab and other Moroccan women, the Authenticity and Modernity Party team in the House of Representatives (the first chamber of Parliament) submitted a proposal to modify articles 236 and 238 of the Code of family (personal status law) regarding guardianship. children.
Change in law
The parliamentary group’s proposal revealed the existence of difficulties faced by the mother, who is prevented from obtaining the necessary documents to satisfy the interests of her children, whether during the marital relationship when the father neglects the marital home , or after the divorce and the mother obtains custody.
Article 236 of the Family Code provides that “the father is guardian of his children under Sharia, unless he is deprived of his guardianship by court order.
If article 238 of the code defines the conditions of the guardianship of the mother over the children in specific cases, in particular the absence of the father, his death, his loss of capacity, or his search for an offense of family abandonment, or while he is serving a prison sentence for a misdemeanor or felony.
Consideration of children’s interests
Houriya Didi, parliamentarian of the Authenticity and Modernity Party, explains that this legislative initiative comes because of the difficulties encountered by mothers in obtaining administrative documents for their children, whether they are identity documents, hospitalization documents and education or issuance of passports.
In a statement to “Sky News Arabia”, Didi considers it unacceptable to disturb the interests of children and deprive them of their basic rights such as health and education due to lack or loss of father’s eligibility.
The spokeswoman added that the bill does not require the father to be stripped of legal guardianship of the children, but rather grants the mother the right to carry out administrative procedures for her children in a way that preserves best interests of children and takes into account their rights.
The parliamentarian explains that there are several cases of children who have been deprived of their basic rights, including education, due to the absence of a legal guardian and the difficulty of removing guardianship.
blackmail paper
A number of human and women’s rights activists have been calling for years to change the requirements for legal guardianship of children, in line with the international agreement ratified by the Kingdom.
Aisha Lakhmas, a lawyer and president of the Federation of Women’s Action in Morocco, says that the guardianship of the father over the children can often turn into blackmail in the face of the mother, especially during the period of conflict in the marital relationship or after. If the administration is in the interests of the son, many women find themselves forced to forfeit alimony in exchange for obtaining the father’s permission to carry out the act.
The spokesperson confirms that the mother, to whom the law grants the right to custody of the children after the divorce, encounters difficulties in managing the interests of her children or obtaining administrative documents due to the absolute legal guardianship of the father. The lawyer and human rights activist believes it has become necessary today to tie custody rights to the state in a way that serves
interests of children
Lakhmas considers that limiting guardianship to the father is “a discrimination against women and a lack of respect for the interests of children, who are considered the first victims of this legislation that does not comply with international conventions ratified by Morocco”.
The reflection on the evolution of the texts relating to the legal guardianship of the father is accompanied by the launch of workshops to revise the provisions of the Family Code, which was approved in 2014.
And the Moroccan monarch, King Mohammed VI, called in a speech on the occasion of the Feast of the Throne last July to reconsider the Family Code by “overcoming the imbalances and negatives that experience has revealed , and to review some of the provisions which have been deviated from its objectives, if necessary.
Lawyer Aisha Lakhmas points out that the Family Code Act needs a radical overhaul in order to achieve equality and justice between men and women, while developing mechanisms to implement its requirements for solving family problems.
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