The Moroccan Government recently introduced a new bill to reform the Nationality Code for Moroccan women and children. The proposed bill is coming up for vote in the Parliament around February 12th.

Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM) has been instrumental in applying pressure to the Government to change the Nationality Code to ensure that all women be given the right to pass along their nationality to their children, irrespective of who they marry. We interviewed Rabéa Naciri, the President of ADFM, to find out more about the bill, its impact, and the next steps for women’s organizations in Morocco.

When was the bill introduced and what does it propose?

The Council of Government examined and adopted, on January 18, 2007, the new law bill to reform nationality. In July 2005, at the time of the Throne speech, the King of Morocco, supported the requests of the coalition of organizations of Moroccan civil society by asking the government to work out a bill recognizing the right of Moroccan women to pass their nationality to their children. However, we have been waiting until January 2007 so that this bill is presented at the government, further to several mobilizations and actions carried out by ADFM and many other organizations. Currently, the project provides in Article 6 that: “A child born of a Moroccan father or a Moroccan mother is Moroccan”. In addition, we had carried out an advocacy campaign to make the effects of this law retroactive (so that the children born before the promulgation of the laws profit from it). The bill integrates this request.

What impact will the new legislation have on Moroccan women and children?

This is a right which will make it possible for Moroccan women to enjoy their citizenship. It is a right of the children that they are recognized as citizens and can profit from all the rights granted to the other Moroccan children (economic and social rights, civil and political rights, marital status, receiving passports, attending universities, etc).

What are the next steps for ADFM and the coalition of women’s organizations in regards to the Nationality Code?

In the next weeks, it will be a question of initiating a new dynamic and consistent process in:

• analyzing the bill,
• making proposals for an amendment, if necessary, at the following levels:
  - procedures of application,
  - procedures of naturalization of foreign husbands of Moroccan women living in Morocco,
• accelerating the adoption of this law (by the Council of Ministers and Parliament).

For that, it will be necessary to set up a new advocacy strategy that can be adapted to the new context.

Some say reforms to the nationality code are minor in comparison to the Moudawana reform. What is your view on its significance for women’s human rights?

The revision of Article 6 comes to supplement the Moudawana. It has a great range insofar as this article puts the father and the mother on equal footing. The identity of the child can be defined by his mother or father. In this sense, it is a significant blow related to the patriarchal status and to the ‘primacy’ of men to women.

What strategies would you recommend from your experience to activists from other countries seeking to reform their nationality laws?

According to the lessons drawn from our experience, it seems to us that the fact of having a clear vision and strategy of action (on the mid and long terms) are significant conditions to bring change. In addition, building wide coalitions and media coverage are also assets to bring about success on this issue. This is all the more true as political resistances to the revision of nationality codes in the Arab and Muslim world cannot validly be founded on the religious reference frame.

Rabéa Naciri is the President of Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc (ADFM) and the former Executive Director of the Collectif 95 Maghreb Egalite, a network of women’s associations and women researchers from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia committed to preventing violence against women. Ms. Naciri is a Professor in the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines at the University of Rabat in Morocco, and has written extensively on Arab women and poverty, women and Islam, and capacity-building for women.

Interview by Christina Halstead, Women's Learning Partnership-WLP