Human Trafficking in [Morocco Street Children in [Morocco] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Morocco] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Kingdom of Morocco [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Morocco is a
source country for children trafficked internally for the purposes of
domestic servitude and commercial sexual exploitation. Morocco is also a
source, transit, and destination country for women and men trafficked for
commercial sexual exploitation and involuntary servitude. Young Moroccan
girls from rural areas are recruited to work as child maids in cities, but
often face conditions of involuntary servitude, including restrictions on
movement, non-payment of wages, threats, and physical or sexual abuse.
Moroccan boys also endure involuntary servitude as apprentices in the
artisan, construction, and mechanics industries. Moroccan boys and girls are
also exploited through prostitution within the country and increasingly are victims
of a growing child sex tourism problem. Moroccan girls and women are also
trafficked internally and to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Syria, U.A.E., Cyprus, and
European countries for commercial sexual exploitation. In addition, men and
women from sub-Saharan Africa, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan
often enter Morocco voluntarily, but illegally, with the assistance of
smugglers. Once in Morocco, however, some women are coerced into commercial
sexual exploitation to pay off smuggling debts, while men may be forced into
involuntary servitude. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking
in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Morocco
could become women rights model among Muslim countries In an interview published Saturday
by French magazine "Le Figaro Madame," Belqadi said "since the
beginning of his reign, HM King Mohammed VI voiced support for women's
rights. Today, she went on, His Majesty has launched a deep-rooted reform.
And it takes courage to deal with such a hot issue in Muslim countries." JOURNEY INTO DEATH - No one knows exactly how many
people attempt the dangerous illegal crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar
each year, though their number probably runs into the hundreds of thousands.
Conservative estimates suggest that hundreds of them perish in the attempt.
Though most of these individuals will appear only as statistics, or in brief
news reports of bodies washed up on the beaches of Spain, Mahi Binebine’s
novel gives them a human face - and a history. SLAVE TRADE - The neglect of Morocco's
street-children is just the tip of the iceberg of Morocco's child crisis.
Across the kingdom, I encountered dozens of children treated as commodities,
just as the slave trade of old.
'Parents are raising their children for sale,' says Bashir Nzaggi,
news editor with the respected Moroccan newspaper, Liberation. 'They send
them to work in the towns, and never see them except to collect their
pay-packets. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In urban areas, girls can be found working as domestic servants,
often in situations of unregulated “adoptive servitude.” In these situations, girls from rural areas
are trafficked, “sold” by their parents, and “adopted” by wealthy urban
families to work in their homes. Girls
and boys working as domestic servants and street vendors are increasingly
targets of child sex tourism, particularly in the cities of Marrakech and Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS –
Trafficking of women for prostitution was prevalent, and prostitution was a
problem particularly in cities with large numbers of tourists, as well as
near towns with large military installations. Prostitution of trafficked
minors was a particular problem in the Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices - 2004 CHILDREN - The practice of adoptive
servitude, in which urban families employ young rural girls and use them as
domestic servants in their homes, was widespread. Credible reports of
physical and psychological abuse in such circumstances were widespread. Some
orphanages have been charged as complicit in the practice. More often,
parents of rural girls contracted their daughters to wealthy urban families
and collected the salaries for their work as maids. Adoptive servitude was
accepted socially, was unregulated by the Government, and only in recent years
began to attract public criticism. The problem remained prevalent, although
the National Observatory of Children's Rights has conducted, since 2000, a
human rights awareness campaign regarding the plight of child maids. The legal minimum age of employment
was 15 years. The number of children working illegally as domestic servants
was high: 45 percent of household employees were between the ages of 10 and
12 and 26 percent were under the age of 10, according to a 2001 joint study
by the Moroccan League for the Protection of Children and UNICEF. The report
denounced the poor treatment a number of the children received, such as being
forced to work all day with no breaks. Many children worked either as
domestic servants, artisan apprentices, or in some other capacity that kept
them from attending school. TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Women
were trafficked abroad, and internal trafficking was also a problem,
particularly of women for sexual exploitation or of young girls for domestic
service. The country was a transit point
for trafficking and alien smuggling to Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2003 [60] While noting the efforts of
the State party to prevent and combat child labour (ratification of ILO
Conventions Nos. 138 and 182, ILO/IPEC program to fight child labour), the
Committee is concerned that the incidence of economic exploitation remains
widespread in the agricultural and handicraft sectors, including metalworking
and jewellery-, carpet- and mosaic‑making. The Committee is also deeply concerned at
the situation of domestic servants (petites bonnes), mostly girls, who are
subjected to harsh working conditions and abuse. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 5 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free Human Rights Overview
by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Morocco
could become women rights model among Muslim countries In an interview published Saturday
by French magazine "Le Figaro Madame," Belqadi said "since the
beginning of his reign, HM King Mohammed VI voiced support for women's
rights. Today, she went on, His Majesty has launched a deep-rooted reform.
And it takes courage to deal with such a hot issue in Muslim countries." Summary of midterm reviews and major evaluations of
country programmes domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7202ab235982dceb85256f1700551f29?OpenDocument 14. Morocco is a leader in the
region in combating commercial sexual exploitation of children. 15. According to the study,
several key factors were associated with child sexual exploitation: poverty,
single-parent households, abuse and maltreatment in early childhood, peer
pressure, and absence of sex education. Clients are both nationals and
foreigners, with an increasing number of sex tourists coming from the West
and from the Gulf region. More than 70 per cent of the children interviewed
had been informed about health risks but knowledge about HIV/AIDS and
prevention was limited. 16. Even if they condemn sexual
exploitation, families sometimes do not question their children about their
activities, especially if the families are poor and the children bring money
to the household. Empowering
Girls and Young Women at Risk Empowering Girls and Young Women
at Risk in Morocco is intended to be a comprehensive and practical guide to
working with girls and young women at risk from a human rights based
approach. (International Human Rights Law Group) The International Human Rights Law
Group are pleased to announce the publication of "Empowering Girls and
Young Women at Risk in Morocco: A Resource Book on Sexual Abuse, Forced
Labor, and Trafficking in Persons in Prostitution and Domestic Service",
recently produced by the Morocco Field Office of the International Human
Rights Law Group in collaboration with a Working Group of 13 local NGOs from
diverse sites across Morocco. JOURNEY INTO DEATH - No one knows exactly how many
people attempt the dangerous illegal crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar
each year, though their number probably runs into the hundreds of thousands.
Conservative estimates suggest that hundreds of them perish in the attempt.
Though most of these individuals will appear only as statistics, or in brief
news reports of bodies washed up on the beaches of Spain, Mahi Binebine’s
novel gives them a human face - and a history. Traffickers hold
thousands of children, women in bondage Traffickers who specialise in
taking young women to Europe, where they are held in debt bondage and forced
into prostitution, have established networks all over West Africa, according
to police and NGO sources. From bases
scattered all over the region the women are taken on the tortuous journey
across the Sahara Desert to destinations in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, from where attempts are made
to smuggle them to Europe. ECPAT International North Africa Regional Consultation on
the Elimination of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children www.ecpat.net/eng/ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/rabat/index.asp ECPAT International, in
cooperation with UNICEF, organised a Regional Consultation on North Africa at
the Hotel IBIS, in Rabat, Morocco, from 12-13th of June 2003. The agenda for
the two day meeting covered aspects of commercial sexual exploitation of
children in Chad, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, in particular, the
sexual abuse of domestic workers, early marriages and child prostitution. The
meeting also considered how networking can help the implementation of the
Stockholm Declaration and Agenda for Action, as well as the Declaration of
the Arab-African Forum against sexual exploitation of children, adopted in
Rabat on the 24-26 October 2001 (in preparation for the Yokohama Conference
in December 2001). New report discusses child abuse in Morocco sosmorocco.elkarya.com/?p=18 The report explores the origins of
sexual exploitation. Most stem from blatant violations of children’s
socio-economic rights—the right to a respectable standard of living, the
right to education, the right not to work, the right to play— but also from a
lack of sexual education and awareness at schools. Poverty appears to be the
decisive factor pushing children into prostitution alongside factors such as
the break-up of the family unit, mistreatment within the family and the
absence of a national action plan delineating a strategy for preventing
violence against youth. NOWHERE TO TURN: State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children by Spain and Morocco THE PRESSURES ON CHILDREN TO
MIGRATE - Children in
Morocco are exposed to a variety of factors that encourage migration. Many
unaccompanied migrant children we interviewed told us that they saw no future
for themselves in Morocco, a stark response to Morocco's demographic and
economic reality. Almost one fifth of the total population lives in poverty,
up from 13 percent in 1991, and the World Bank classifies almost half the
population as "economically vulnerable." Forty-four percent of the
poor are children under fifteen. The majority of those living in poverty are
concentrated in rural areas, where many of the children we interviewed had
lived. Official unemployment rates at the end of 2001 stood at 13 percent,
with unemployment rates for youth aged fifteen to twenty-four at 20 percent.
Legislation mandating free, compulsory education from ages six to fifteen and
World Bank-financed educational reforms have increased school attendance, but
primary enrollment rates remain low compared to other lower-middle-income
countries. Despite significant rural/urban and gender disparities in access
to education, survey data show poverty to be the "single most important
obstacle for non-enrollment of school-age children in both urban and rural
areas. Report of the Special Rapporteur www.hri.ca/fortherecord2001/documentation/commission/e-cn4-2001-78-add1.htm 13. Once they arrive in their
employer’s home, they are extremely vulnerable to exploitation. The girl is
usually far away from home, and certainly cannot go back to her parents at
night. Often she has no opportunity to meet people outside of her new
household and consequently has nowhere to go and no one to turn to for help.
She is unlikely to see much of her family for several years, and what little
money she earns is usually given straight to her parents. 15. In most cases, the girls’ work
involved cleaning and general housework, looking after the children and doing
the cooking for the whole family. Over 25 per cent of the girls questioned
confirmed that their work involved all three tasks. Seventy-two per cent of
the girls began their working day before 7.00 and 65 per cent did not finish
until after 23.00; 81 per cent declared that they did not get a single day
off in the week and 34 per cent claimed that they had to continue to work
even when they were sick. In over 80 per cent of the cases, the child’s
salary, which was usually less than 300 dirham per month (10 dirham =
US$ 1), was sent directly to their parents. Twenty-five per cent claimed
that they were never allowed to be visited by their parents; 43 per cent of
parents reported that they visited their child once a month and 36 per cent
reported that they visited the child in order to collect her salary. Child
Prostitution and the Spread of AIDS There are at least 13 million
children in Morocco, most of whom must make a living any way they can to help
support their families, including prostitution. The threat of HIV is ever
present for the street children of Morocco. But the actual number of reported
HIV/AIDS cases (809) is low in comparison to the Health Ministry's total
estimate of 400,000 sexually transmitted disease cases running through the
country. SLAVE TRADE - The neglect of Morocco's
street-children is just the tip of the iceberg of Morocco's child crisis.
Across the kingdom, I encountered dozens of children treated as commodities,
just as the slave trade of old.
'Parents are raising their children for sale,' says Bashir Nzaggi,
news editor with the respected Moroccan newspaper, Liberation. 'They send
them to work in the towns, and never see them except to collect their
pay-packets. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Morocco Street Children in [Morocco] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Morocco] [other countries]