By STEVEN ERLANGER and SOUAD MEKHENNET


TANGIER, Morocco - Despite an important reform of Morocco’s family code in 2004, sex outside marriage is not recognized in Morocco, any more than homosexuality is.

The new law, known as the Moudawana, was pressed upon a reluctant Parliament by the young king, Muhammad VI. It provides no protection for women like Latifa al-Amrani, 21, who is about to become a single mother. She met a man, Ali, who claimed he was a policeman. One day he took her supposedly to meet his aunt. It was an empty apartment, and they made love.

“He told me he wanted to marry me,” she said. “But then he changed his phone and I couldn’t reach him anymore.” She filed a complaint with the police but has heard nothing. Her parents beat her, she said, so she ran away.

But Ms. Amrani intends to keep her baby. One reason for her confidence is the work of a charitable group called 100% Mamans, created in 2006 by Claire Trichot, 33. With help from a Spanish nongovernmental organization and private donors, it provides food, shelter and education for single mothers, takes them to hospitals for the birth, then helps them to care for the babies and find jobs.

Most of the young women have been shunned by their families and abandoned by the fathers of their children, Ms. Trichot said. The mosques ignore them; families sometimes throw them out; the police usually think even rape victims are lying.

“We want to make sure these women are treated fairly,” Ms. Trichot said.

The Moudawana was much praised. It gave women equal legal rights to men in a marriage, including the right to ask for a divorce; raised the legal age for marriage to 18 from 15; and gave first wives the right to refuse should their husbands desire to marry a second wife.

Even five years later, the law is deeply controversial, and many family judges are susceptible to corruption, according to groups promoting women’s rights, like the Women’s Development Association in Casablanca. “You can’t expect a quick change in mentality and habits in only five years,” said Touria Eloumri, the group’s president.

There are cases where a first wife’s consent to a second wife is forged, or a woman appears before the judge pretending to be a man’s wife, Ms. Eloumri said. There are long delays, and a system of family courts is only now being instituted. Many women want further changes.

In a recent poll of Moroccans by a Moroccan magazine, TelQuel, and the French daily Le Monde, 91 percent had favorable opinions of the king. But the same poll, which was banned by the government, found that 49 percent said the Mou da wa na “gave too many rights to women,” while 30 percent said it gave “enough rights to women” and should not go further.

Hinde Taarji, 52, is a writer and journalist, divorced, who recently adopted a son. “It’s evident the new law cannot be implemented the way it should for now,” she said. “But it’s a very important signal.”

She described a female friend who ran a hotel and was separated for 15 years, but could not get a divorce because her husband refused. Under the new law, she finally divorced.

“Even with the best law in the world, the corruption of the justice system is still a very big problem here,” Ms. Taarji said. “But lots of things have changed in Morocco for the better.”

Still, the biggest problem for young women in Morocco is lack of education; there is little sex education, even at home, and almost 70 percent of the women who come to 100%Mamans are illiterate - compared with about 38 percent nationwide. “They leave home and go to the cities to work, and confront the freedom of that,” Ms. Trichot said. “Then they meet young men and they are not ready.”


Despite a more liberal family code, Moroccan law does not protect women who have sex outside marriage. A private group, 100% Mamans, assists this unwed mother in Tangier.