In Morocco, a deep-rooted patriarchal system and widespread gender discrimination put immense pressure on women to conform to the roles of wife and mother. Sadly, child marriage is often perpetuated by families afraid of the risks of extramarital pregnancy and sexual relations, anxious to protect the family’s honor. Considerable progress had been made in recent decades to reduce child marriage in Morocco. However, this harmful practice remains widespread in remote regions, owing to factors such as poverty and a lack of education.
W4’s field partner in Morocco, Fondation YTTO, works to inform communities living in remote rural areas about the harms of child marriage. Awareness-raising caravans travel to these remote regions to carry out training workshops. Volunteer teams will drive “awareness-raising caravans” to villages across the region. The program will also incorporate artistic activities and poetry in their awareness-raising events for local village populations. As part of the program, a team of legal advisors assists village communities in carrying out the legal birth registration of young girls in the community, which is a very effective means of helping to protect girls from child marriage.
This program helps providing communities in remote areas with the education, information, and legal assistance they need to better protect girls from child marriage and to protect girls and women from gender violence.