COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD REVIEWS REPORT OF MOROCCO

CRC
33rd session
2 June 2003





The Committee on the Rights of the Child today considered the second periodic report of Morocco on how that country implements the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Omar Hilale, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Morocco to the United Nations Office at Geneva, introduced the report, saying that the Moroccan authorities, under the impetus of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, had deployed sustained and coordinated efforts to promote and protect the rights of the child. The considerable progress achieved, which was, incidentally, recognized by the international organizations, was a reason for great satisfaction and encouragement in Morocco. Morocco was dedicated to putting these plans at the head of Morocco’s national priorities, in order to preserve peace and security, both in the interest of the current generation, and of future generations.

Committee Experts questioned the delegation on, among other things, why Morocco’s reservation to article 14 on the freedom of thought, religion and expression continued; how were the various institutions protecting human rights coordinated and how was the problem solved when there was a juridicial issue, including physical and corporal punishment in the home and at school and what mechanisms existed for children to complain of such acts; non-discrimination and social discrimination against women, particularly the rights of divorced women; education and the children who did not attend school since this was apparently quite a number; what happened to these children who were without formal teaching and what plans and programmes were implemented for them; and the mechanism used by Morocco to ensure that every mother or father had registered their child at school and what steps were taken if a parent failed to do so.
In preliminary concluding remarks, Luigi Citarella, the Committee Expert who served as Rapporteur on the report of Morocco, said much progress had been made, and this was commended. Notably, the programmes set up to improve economic and social rights were to be commended, especially in light of the economic hardship. The delegation was once more encouraged to withdraw Morocco's reservation to Article 14, and it was hoped that at the next meeting the recommendations of the Committee would have been further implemented.
The delegation also included Hynd Ayoubi Idrissi, Director of International Relations at the Ministry for Human Rights; Khadija Meshaque, Director of Reglementation and Contention at the Ministry of Health; Jalia Houmane, Minister Plenipotentiary with the Permanent Mission of Morocco in Geneva; Nziha Harrak, Magistrate of the Supereme Court and Councilor at the Ministry of Justice; Azzeddine Farhane, Councilor at the Permanent Mission; Amina Oufrouki, Head of Service for Child Delinquancy, Judicial Commissar at the Direction of Penal Affairs and of the Ministry of Justice; Toufik Mediani, Administrator, Direction of International Relations at the Ministry of Human Rights; and Leila Froh Belfakir, Responsible for the Childhood-Cell, Secretariat of State for the Family, Solidarity and Social Action.
The Committee will issue its final recommendations on the report of Morocco towards the end of its session, which concludes on 6 June.
The Committee will reconvene on Tuesday, 3 June at 10 a.m. to consider the second periodic report of Syria (CRC/C/93/Add.2).

Second Periodic Report of Morocco
The second periodic report of Morocco (CRC/C/93/Add.3) reviews general measures of implementation of the Convention, the definition of the child, general principles of the Convention, civil rights and freedoms, family environment and alternative care, basic health and welfare, education, leisure and cultural activities, and special protection measures taken in the Kingdom of Morocco.
The Government of Morocco has noted with satisfaction the comments made by the Committee on the measures taken by Morocco on the institutional and legislative levels in order to give effect to the Convention and to promote the rights of the child. The Government has also taken into account all the remarks and recommendations made by the Committee in the course of the latter’s consideration of the initial report (CRC/C/28/Add.1), and in response has intensified its efforts to put into effect these recommendations through a number of actions and measures to advance the rights of the child to the required level.
In addition to measures reviewed in the initial report, the Government has taken a number of initiatives to promote the conditions of children and to protect their rights. These include measures taken to harmonise national law and policy with the provisions of the Convention; measures taken to improve the collection of data and statistics in respect of children; measures taken to guarantee economic, social and cultural rights; action taken to make the principles and provisions of the Convention widely known; and measures adopted to make the national report widely known. Mechanisms have also been put into place for promoting social development, which has been made a priority.

Presentation of Report
OMAR HILALE, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Morocco and head of the delegation, introducing the report, said the presentation of the second report reflected the will of the Moroccan Government to have a sincere, fruitful and constructive dialogue with the Committee, and was evidence of Morocco’s respect for its obligations under the Convention.
In order to prepare the children of Morocco to confront the challenges of the future, the issue of the protection, defense and promotion of the rights of the child was a high national priority in Morocco. In this respect, the authorities of Morocco, under the impetus of His Majesty the King Mohammed VI, had deployed sustained and coordinated efforts to promote and protect the rights of the child. These efforts were underpinned and upheld by civil society as represented by several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which were working together with the representatives of the Government in order to improve the protection of the rights of the child in all fields, notably health, education and nutrition.
The considerable progress achieved, which was, incidentally, recognized by the international organizations, was a reason for great satisfaction and encouragement in Morocco. However the Moroccan authorities had made a serene and realistic assessment of what had been done to date, and what remained to be done to consolidate these achievements, and to implement fully and carefully the national strategy in favour of the Moroccan child. Morocco was dedicated to continue its action in promoting and defending the rights of the child within the context of the dispositions of the Declaration and the Plan of Action that came out of the Special Session of the General Assembly that was dedicated to children, and to put these plans at the head of Morocco’s national priorities, in order to preserve peace and security, both in the interest of the current generation, and of future generations.

Questions on General Measures of Implementation; Definition of the Child
LUIGI CITARELLA, the Committee Expert who served as Rapporteur on the report of Morocco, said that over the last few years, Morocco had made progress in the field of human rights in general, notably in the area of economic and social rights. Problems remained, with some concerns, particularly the issue of freedom of the press and censorship. The report was very good, and provided a lot of information on many issues, including on policies that would be implemented in the future to advance the respect of the Convention and human rights. The Convention had a supreme value over national domestic laws, and this needed to be better publicized. How important was the creation of the parliamentary committee on the rights of the child, he asked, and did it have any legislative powers in that respect. There was a problem in the field of statistical data, which was not of the kind required by the Committee. The problem of the definition of the child remained, particularly with regard to the legal age of employment and the age of criminal responsibility, and needed to be remedied.
Committee Experts also asked questions on varied topics, including the need to better mainstream the rules and principles of the Convention, and improve attitudes towards it; Morocco’s reservation to article 14 on the freedom of thought, religion and expression, and the need to reconsider its position on this issue; what efforts were being made in Morocco to raise the age of marriage for girls; who received children’s complaints and what was their mandate with respect to this; how Koranic and Islamic schools implemented the rules and regulations of the Convention and how this was monitored; what was the mechanism for the coordination of the rights of the child; how, since there were no specific budgetary allocations for children, could the Government be sure that the money that did reach them was sufficient; how necessary statistical information on children was created; how were the various institutions protecting human rights coordinated and how was the problem solved when there was a jurisdiction issue; and what modes and means were used by the National Observatory on Human Rights to collect and gather provincial data.

Response to Questions on General Measures of Implementation; Definition of the Child
Responding to the questions, the delegation said perfection was out of everyone’s reach, and yet much work had been done in Morocco in search of this elusive goal. For this, the help of the Committee was required, and the suggestions and recommendations of the Committee would be transmitted to the Government in order to help it to create a better world for its children. To understand the situation in Morocco, it was necessary to bear in mind that it was a developing country, and therefore had challenges and problems. Despite these, the issue of children had been put at the top of the list of the Government’s priorities, and it was prepared to do everything possible to ensure that the obligations of Morocco were transparent, complete, and integral to their implementation. There was an enormous political will in the undertakings of the Government in tackling problems related to children. There was no issue related to children which was taboo in Moroccan society, and leaders had pledged to commit themselves to solving all problems, however sensitive these may be.
Law and rights changed, Morocco was changing, but it was doing so in line with its international agreements and commitments. The complexity of the problems of the children should be judged in light of Morocco’s economic problems, and also the commitments of His Majesty’s Government to improve the situation.
With regard to the reservations to Article 14, currently in Morocco there was a lot of reflection to find an answer to this question. Morocco, as a number of Experts had noted, could not remain on the sidelines of the international community, notably the Arab and Muslim community. Morocco was committed to resolving this issue as quickly as possible at many levels. Despite the Moroccan reservation, the right to religious observance was codified in the Constitution, and the reservation did not curtail the freedom of worship, whatever form this may take. Morocco was a place where different religions coexisted, and it was proud of that fact. There was a form of osmosis around the problem of children in Morocco, and there was optimism that the country would set up for children and for future generations a better world where a spirit of openness and tolerance would reign. Children were the future, and they should be protected at all times.
As for coordination between departments responsible for children, this was a cross-cutting issue which could not be dealt with by just one department. There were different structures, but there was no conflict regarding the operation and allocation of activities between the various departments. When the National Policy for Children and such general policy was formulated, that responsibility fell to the Secretariat of State for Family, Solidarity and Social Action, whose responsibility it also was to coordinate all activities with regard to the rights of the child.
The National Observatory for the Rights of the Child had been an extraordinary invention, which gave rise to the First National Congress. It was a permanent institution with the task of acting as a body that looked out for the implementation of the rights of the child. It had a role and direct access to both executive and legislative branches of the Government. It was to get things going and moving in the right direction. It had also resulted in the creation of the Children’s Parliament in 1999, whose role was to be a place in which an exchange of ideas could be held and children could be trained for democracy and citizenship.
The age of civil majority had been brought down to the age of eighteen. The penal procedure code had raised the age of criminal responsibility to eighteen also. There were still certain discrepancies, but the trend was towards a harmonization of the definition of the child in respect to the stipulations of the Convention. The will of the Kingdom of Morocco was to provide better protection to the child, and this was why the age had been raised. With regard to the age of marriage, which was fifteen for girls and eighteen for boys, the objective of the Kingdom of Morocco was to bring all these ages in line with each other. There was a clear will to move forward in protecting the child and to increase this age, in alignment with the concept of non-discrimination.
Since the ratification of the Convention, public awareness on this issue and related human rights issues had increased and the judicial system adopted its provisions in many cases for its judgments and sentences.

Questions on General Principles; Civil Rights and Freedoms; Family Environment and Alternative Care
Mr. Cittarella noted that the report highlighted that the principle of non-discrimination was guaranteed by the Convention, but in some areas this discrimination was difficult to eliminate, notably with regard to the difference between the age of marriage, laws with application to women and girls, discrimination against women and children in rural areas, and against foreigners. There was a draft labour law, which had not been ratified by Parliament although it was three years old, which eliminated some of this discrimination. Concerning the superior interest of the child, certain laws gave greater weight to the protection of the child. As for torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, everything was being done to avoid cases of this in Morocco, although there was mention of many cases of this in the report, and this needed to be addressed.
The Experts of the Committee also asked questions on varied topics, including physical and corporal punishment in the home and at school and what mechanisms existed for children to complain of such acts; institutionalization of orphans; non-discrimination and social discrimination against women, particularly the rights of divorced women; poverty-alleviating measures and what financial allocations were received by children; sexual abuse of children; what was the influence of migration towards Europe on the children left behind; the lack of services available to children in the Western Sahara; what positive measures Morocco could take to ensure that the rights of illegitimate children were respected, particularly in their search for paternity and identity; and issues related to the naming of children, particularly with regard to the Berber population.

Response to Questions on General Principles; Civil Rights and Freedoms; Family Environment and Alternative Care
Responding to the questions, the delegation said that with regard to children in the Moroccan Sahara, there was absolutely no difference between the children living there, and those living in other parts of the country; all were given the same attention. There was no discrimination or selective policy being applied to one group or the other, since all were considered as Moroccan, and it was a national policy to see to the needs of all children and to guarantee them a better future. It was hoped that these Tinduf children would one day be able to meet their relatives when the political situation was settled and work could be done on the creation of the Greater Maghreb.
As for the children of Moroccan emigrants, all children of the Moroccan community living abroad were paid particular attention, whether their situation was legal or otherwise. Much work was done to settle their problems at many different levels.
The delegation then responded to the other questions asked by the Experts. With regard to the registration of children, 80 per cent of all births were registered, and a new law made it obligatory to register all births. Work had been done to keep the population aware of this fact. This was a fundamental point that ensured that children’s rights were safeguarded, since they therefore existed legally as persons. It was hoped that with the entry into force of this law and the increase in public awareness of the law that the rate of registration would increase significantly.
Discrimination was prohibited in the Constitution, which stipulated that all Moroccans were equal before the law, but it existed on a de facto basis. The Constitution also guaranteed freedom of expression and of political conscience. Some divergences existed in the text, and were inherent to the provisions adopted according to gender. Changes had however been made to harmonise this last and to further protect the rights of women and girl children.
Changes had been made to the custodial laws with the aim of improving the rights of the child and its best interests. The new Criminal Code also forbade violence against women and children in the home. Other legislative changes had been made and implemented to ensure that all were treated equally before the law.
Further, Morocco believed in the dignity of all members of the family and that they had the same duties and rights. The family was a principle unit of society that ensured the development of society. Children should have their possibilities nurtured with the aim of achieving a great future, and for this the Moroccan Government had enacted legislation in their regard. The preservation of the family unit was considered a top priority by the Government, and the King had set up a Family Solidarity Unit, showing how important this issue was for Moroccan society.
At the end of the 1990s, many initiatives had taken place to protect children from violence and abuse. Improving the situation of children in difficult circumstances, to provide them with a brighter future, to strengthen the family, and to ensure proper conditions for women and children had all been prime issues that had been included in national policies and strategies from that date on. Moroccan laws were currently considered sufficient to cover all violations and sexual assaults that could be suffered by children, nevertheless the ratification by Morocco of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography had given rise to the suggestion of amending legislation and the Constitution and this should be investigated shortly by the Government.
Regarding the right of freedom of expression and religion, several measures had been taken to enhance these rights, foremost of which was a new law on the media which allowed media workers to obtain necessary information. There was also a decree that had been issued by the Ministry of the Interior to this effect. In spite of the reservation to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with regard to the right of religion, this did not mean that there was any repression of any religion in Morocco, and all individuals had the right to express their religion and to worship as that religion stipulated. Islam was and always had been a religion of tolerance in this regard.

Questions on Health and Welfare; Education, Leisure, and Cultural Activities; Special Protection Measures
Mr. Citarella spoke of children in institutions, commenting that this appeared to be a very grievous problem. Why were children whose parents were still living placed in institutions, and who decided that it was in their interest, he asked. With regard to health, what funding was available for the immunization programmes, and what had been done to ensure that there could be proper health and medical care for the poorest families who did not have the resources to protect their own health. He also noted that mother and child mortality was still high, and wondered whether special efforts were being made to ensure that more girls enrolled in schools and derived a greater benefit from primary school education. Did capital punishment and life imprisonment still exist in the legislation for young people between sixteen and eighteen, and were there specialized courts for dealing with minors, he asked.
Committee Experts also asked questions on such topics as psychological health among children who had been incarcerated; street children and their treatment of society; girls working in private homes as servants and what was being done to remedy this problem; the curriculum in the madrassahs, and whether the teaching in these schools contributed towards directing children in a negative direction or was in fact beneficial; the absence of the concept of flagrante delicto in legislation regarding children; education and the children who did not attend school since their number was apparently quite numerous; what happened to these children who were without formal teaching and what plans and programmes were implemented for them; disabled children and the apparent lack of specialized teaching for them; the mechanism used by Morocco to ensure that every mother or father had registered their child at school and what steps were taken if a parent failed to do so; and what was the percentage of babies, children under the age of five, and mothers who died untimely.

Response to Questions on Health and Welfare; Education, Leisure, and Cultural Activities; Special Protection Measures
Responding, the delegation assured the Committee that Morocco gave a priority importance to the issue of child education, since without it, it would be impossible to prepare their children to meet life’s challenges and to become future citizens. Education was free up until university, at which point scholarships were provided to all students who could not cover their living costs. With regard to the high rate of illiteracy, this was due to an issue of development, and that Morocco was a rural country, with a majority of people in the countryside where it was difficult to make school available to all families. However, a programme was being constructed for these children in partnership with NGOs. With regard to literacy, great efforts were being made in spite of the differences that still existed as already stated, but through the 20/20 initiative to open up rural areas and schooling, particularly for girls, this situation was being changed.
The dissemination of the Convention in other languages was planned, but had not taken place yet due to lack of time. Translation was underway, however. Work had also been done on a Center for Migration, in concert with the International Organisation for Migration.
With regard to rehabilitation centres for children that had been tortured or subject to degrading treatment, some errors had been made in the translation of the report. There were measures protecting these children, and Morocco had done everything to combat such evils. The rehabilitation centres were there for adults, not for children. For children in difficult situations, there was re-education and social centres.
Children’s judges would be appointed and trained to implement legislation appropriately, and this would be in concert with UNICEF. There was also a guide on juvenile legislation which would be distributed to all users. The death penalty was not applied to children, and in certain circumstances certain sanctions could be taken if the crime was extreme enough to require it, although this would not go over 10 years of prison, even though prison itself was not applied to children unless the circumstances were utterly exceptional.
The delegation also explained about children who were instititutionalised, their rights and their guaranteed contact with their families, as well as the length of their imprisonment.
Financing of health care would have a direct impact on the quality thereof, and a study had been held which had uncovered some of the weaknesses of the system, mainly due to the lack of institutionalized solidarity, and to the weakness of this area of public financing. Households had been found to have had to shoulder a large portion of their healthcare, up to 54 per cent, due to the lack of widespread purchasing of health insurance. However, for several years now the Government had been seeking to increase the budget for public health in a progressive manner, and had examined the possibility of setting up generalized medical insurance by making it obligatory. Health protection brought with it an obligation to the State to provide prevention measures and to offer quality medical care which was distributed on a harmonious basis, and the Government of Morocco intended to live up to this obligation to the full.

Preliminary Concluding Remarks
In preliminary concluding remarks, Mr. Citarella said the delegation had been most active and had provided many interesting replies, allowing the Committee to get a clear and comprehensive view of the situation of the child in Morocco. Much progress had been made, and this was commended. The progress on programmes set up to improve economic and social rights was especially to be commended in the situation of economic hardship. It was hoped that all legislation would be implemented shortly. The delegation was once more encouraged to withdraw their reservation to Article 14, and it was hoped that at the next meeting the recommendations of the Committee would have been further implemented.
Concluding, the Permanent Representative of Morocco, said it had been an honour to attend the meeting, and to hear the questions raised. If any questions had not been answered, this was due to a lack of time and not to a lack of goodwill. A written response would be sent right away. The discussion had been most interactive, and of a constructive, positive and transparent nature, and the questions had definitely highlighted the problems in Morocco. The delegation had taken note of these problems and the Government would try to find a solution to them. The Government had the political will to respect the rights of the child, and work would continue to improve the rights of the child in Morocco. The next report would be more positive with further achievements and would be better in line with the Convention which Morocco had had the honour to have signed and would always abide by it.



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