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http://www.wunrn.com

 

MOROCCO - SINGLE MOTHER FIGHTS TRADITION & THE LEGAL SYSTEM FOR HER ILLEGITIMATE CHILD - FILM

 

http://www.filmstransit.com/index.php?option=com_jmovies&Itemid=70&task=detail&id=264

 

http://www.deborahperkin.com/bastards/

 

FILM TRAILERhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXhfzJsKDH8&feature=youtu.be

 

Deborah Perkin Media Ltd presents

BASTARDS

How an illiterate woman took on tradition, her own family and the Moroccan legal system for the sake of her illegitimate child

 

Documentary written, directed and filmed by Deborah Perkin

Featuring Rabha El Haimer, Aicha Chenna, Fatiha Rabbah, Soumia Idman, Lamia Faridi


 


SYNOPSIS

How an illiterate woman took on tradition, her own family and the Moroccan legal system for the sake of her illegitimate child

Bastards tells the moving and uplifting story of Rabha El Haimer and her heroic fight to have her traditional wedding ceremony legally recognized as a marriage and her daughter legitimized by the Moroccan judicial system. It is also a complex and compelling portrait of Moroccan society and its attitudes to women, female sexuality, their position in society and access to education.

Through Rabha’s story, the Moroccan judicial system is laid open and the contemporary issues facing Islamic women are exposed as they seek to reconcile their desire for increased independence with religious and family traditions.

 

RABHA_SALMA

 

INTRODUCTION

At 14 Rabha El Haimer was forced into a marriage with a man she had never met. After her daughter was born, she discovered that the wedding, a traditional ceremony, had no legal status. Her child was therefore illegitimate.

In Morocco, as in all Muslim countries, sex outside marriage is illegal. But in rural communities like Rabha’s the ‘fatha’ ceremony is common, and in every respect the women involved are regarded as wives, who must obey their husbands utterly. But outside these villages, in modern-day Morocco, that fatha is not recognised as a legal marriage. So women like Rabha and their children exist in limbo.

These ‘illegitimate’ children are refused infant immunisations and kept out of the better schools. Their non-status means their fathers can reject them – and their mothers – and fail to support them, in the knowledge that the law is effectively on their side. And it doesn’t end there. Throughout the children’s lives the stigma remains. They are prevented from taking more lucrative and prestigious jobs, such as in the civil service or the police. They are second-class citizens, condemned to a life of discrimination.

Rabha el Haimer has made it her mission to challenge this. Despite not being able to read or write, she has embarked on a mission to get her fatha marriage recognised so she can register her daughter as a full Moroccan citizen. With unprecedented access to the Moroccan justice system, Bastards follows her journey from the slums of Casablanca, where she now lives, to the courts in Agadir. It is the first film ever to reveal this side of life in a modern Arab country, and to take cameras into the Moroccan courts.

In her quest, Rabha faces not only the judges and officials but her child’s father, a violent and uncompromising man who refuses to acknowledge or support their daughter. She also endures insults from his family, and the self-justification of her own mother, who married her off at just 14.

However the story is not all negative.

In 2004, the Moroccan government made the most radical attempt to date in a Muslim country to give women individual rights under Islamic law, with the reform of the ‘Mudawana’ or Family Code. And a pioneering Casablanca charity, L’Association Solidarité Feminine, is helping her and other disadvantaged women. Another ground-breaking aspect of the film is that it shows Muslim women in positions of some authority challenging the status quo, notably the fearless founder of the ASF, Aicha Chenna, and charismatic social worker Soumia Idman. But the battle is still a daunting one, with centuries of entrenched beliefs to overturn.

Rabha’s story is interwoven with those of a mistress fighting for child maintenance, a young student who cannot get the job he wants because of his illegitimacy and a single mother whose boyfriend tried to sell their baby.

Revealing the many facets of a modern Muslim country, Bastards is a deeply moving, funny, and ultimately triumphant portrait of courage in the face of adversity. 

 

Rabha’s story

At the age of 14, her mother and her uncle forced Rabha into an arranged marriage to an older cousin she had never met. When she moved into his home, she discovered that he was deaf and mute, so communication was all but impossible – and according to Rabha, he was also violent.

After two years of rape and beatings, Rabha was pregnant and suicidal. The cousin’s family responded by throwing her out.

It was then Rabha discovered that her traditional marriage ceremony had no status in law. She had been compelled to submit to her husband’s authority like a wife, but had none of a wife’s rights. She was classed as a single mother and her cherished daughter Salma, a bastard.

But Rabha refused to remain a victim. Despite being unable to read or write she embarked on a crusade to compel Salma’s father and his family to face up to their responsibilities, and to gain full citizenship for her child. Helping her fight this battle was a unique and radical charity in Casablanca, L’Association Solidarité Feminine. And following her was award-winning filmmaker Deborah Perkin.

Over eighteen months, Rabha makes three journeys to Agadir to fight her way through the courts with the help of her determined and committed female lawyer Lamia Faridi. And Perkin’s camera follows them into court. There are shocking scenes as Rabha is made to swear on oath that she was a virgin when she got married, and her mute husband insists in sign language that he is not the father of her child. He even denies the ceremony took place – he wasn’t there. Rabha’s extraordinary courage and persistence in the face of such odds are further demonstrated when she persuades several of the witnesses from the wedding to make the hundred mile journey to support her in court. 

 

Morocco – the background

In most Muslim countries sex outside marriage is taboo.  But Morocco is leading the way with a more tolerant attitude to single mothers and their ‘bastard’ children.

With 6500 babies abandoned every year, Morocco is now encouraging single parents to be reconciled as the most constructive way forward. L’Association Solidarité Feminine (ASF), the Casablanca charity featured in the film, has been at the forefront of changing attitudes over the past thirty years, and at the centre of the campaign to reform the Family Code. While the women in the documentary remain victims of social and religious intolerance, they are at the same time beneficiaries of a society edging towards a breakthrough in human rights. 

 

The Mudawana

The Mudawana, is the personal status code, also known as the family code, in Moroccan law. It concerns issues related to the family, including the regulation of marriage, polygamy, divorce, inheritance, and child custody.

Originally based on the Maliki school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence, it was codified after the country gained independence from France in 1956. Its most recent revision, passed by the Moroccan parliament in 2004, has been praised by human rights activists for its measures to address women’s rights and gender equality within an Islamic legal framework.

Although there were calls for reform to the family law in the 1960s and 70s, its religious origins made amending it a challenge, and no serious movement for reform emerged until the 1980s. As a result of newly created civil society organizations, including many women’s organizations, and increased international attention on women’s rights, modest reforms to the Mudawana were enacted in 1993 under King Hassan II. Following this initial change, increased activism resulted in the articulation of a Plan of Action for the Integration of Women in Development, which drew heavily from secular, rights-based frameworks. This sparked fierce debate and opposition within Moroccan political elites and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Moroccan society, and culminated in two rallies in Casablanca and Rabat in March 2000 – one in support of reform and one in opposition to it. This occurred shortly after Mohammad VI succeeded his father as King, and within a year of the rallies, he announced the formation of a commission to further reform the Mudawana. In 2003, he announced his intention to replace the code entirely, citing his authority as both spiritual and political leader of the nation, and by January 2004, the Moroccan parliament ratified the new version.

Major components of the reforms included raising the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 for men and women, establishing joint responsibility for the family among men and women, limiting the terms of polygamy and divorce, and granting women more rights in the negotiation of marriage contracts, among other provisions. Supporters of the reforms point to broad support for them among Moroccan society, especially among women, and cite the new law as a successful example of a progressive reform framed in indigenous, Islamic principles. Critics of the reforms point to the elitist roots of the movements that advocated for the reforms, the influence of Western secular principles, and the many barriers to the law’s implementation within Moroccan society.