Moroccan women's role in public affairs management highlighted

Morocco's Human Rights Minister, Mohamed Aujjar highlighted, here on Friday, Moroccan women's role in public affairs management, based on equal political rights with men.

Taking the floor in an encounter held under the theme: "Women and Responsibility," Aujjar stressed this equality has been consecrated by all the Kingdom's constitutions ever since 1962.

The Moroccan official noted however that despite this constitutional achievement, women's access to political offices remains well under the state's aspirations and the elites'.

Women's fully-fledged access to such offices has been impeded by some masculine mindsets, he said, attributing women's current situation to the society's structures, family, school and to the political parties themselves.

He further stressed that the upcoming communal elections will tantamount to a test of credibility for the discourses of political parties and elites in terms of their actual support to women candidates in these elections.

For Yasmina Baddou, Secretary of State in charge of family, solidarity and social action, the International Women's Day takes place in a juncture marked by a policy of overture initiated by King Mohammed VI, which was reflected, among others, in a rate of 10% of women deputies in the House of Representatives (lower chamber). Another highlight of this period is that Moroccans are waiting the publication of a reformed Mudawana (family code) by the Royal Consultative Commission in charge of the Family Code Reform, She went on.

The Commission will submit its new text in three or four months, as announced in an interview by the Commission's Chairman, M'Hamed Boucetta.