During the Arab Spring, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Rabat, Casablanca and scores of other cities and villages, to demand more jobs, an end to corruption and an elected constituent assembly to write a new constitution. In response, Morocco moved quickly to implement constitutional reform. Among other things, the new 2011 Constitution seeks to protect several citizen rights not previously recognized in Morocco’s 1996 Constitution, and it mandates that national law be harmonized with international human rights conventions ratified by Morocco. ABA ROLI was among the first international nongovernmental organizations to respond to this unique opportunity to support the effort to advance citizen rights in Morocco. ABA ROLI focused on the challenge of empowering citizens and strengthening communication between the government and civil society, in order to engage them in a meaningful way around policy issues such as gender parity, citizen’s participation in policy-making and corruption.
From 2013-2017, the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) worked with numerous Moroccan partners on the Supporting the Efforts of Citizens to Advance Human Rights and Combat Corruption in Morocco program. The program aimed to support and implement critical reforms, strengthen government transparency, support citizen participation in governance, and guarantee citizen rights. The program was in partnership with the US Department of State and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Morocco.
Between 2014–2016, ABA ROLI conducted 75 public education campaign activities to raise awareness on corruption in the criminal justice system in the Marrakech region, reaching more than 41,000 people through activities and 1.3 million more through radio programs.
Capacity Building and Technical Support to Advance Women’s Rights
ABA ROLI supported Moroccan civil society organizations (CSOs) to engage both the government and citizens in advancing new constitutional rights for Moroccan women, as well citizens’ new ability to present legislative and policy initiatives to the government.
Citizen Engagement
ABA ROLI convened lawyers, parliamentarians, academics, CSOs and political party representatives on issues related to women. The project’s outreach into 15 cities and villages outside of Rabat broke new ground by engaging diverse populations and CSOs. A key success of this citizen engagement was coalition building. ABA ROLI and one of our partners took a leading role in developing an especially large and prominent coalition of some 3,000 CSOs, the principal aim of which was to advocate for a greater role for civil society in policy-making.
Legislative Analysis and Drafting to Advance Gender Parity
ABA ROLI facilitated training sessions and expert consultations that contributed to our partners drafting and disseminating proposed legislation and position papers on laws relating to marriage, including polygamy, marriage of minors, inheritance, divorce, and the limits on married women’s political and economic participation. CSOs led a call for reform to bring the laws into harmony with international standards as mandated by the 2011 Moroccan constitution. ABA ROLI and partners also held roundtables in 10 cities engaging well over a thousand CSOs and individual citizens on the formulation of policy and the drafting of laws.
Support for Lawyers and Other Justice Sector Professionals
ABA ROLI trained more than 400 young lawyers, court clerks and law students on advanced litigation skills and applying the appropriate international conventions in domestic courts. Additionally, we supported local lawyers to provide pro bono legal assistance to victims of corruption.