Rapists go unpunished; the heartbreaking reality of a Moroccan girl

To get to the house, a collection of four simple adobe buildings, you have to travel 30 kilometers on a narrow road from the nearest town, and then two more on a reddish sand path. There lives S., a 13-year-old girl who has Morocco in suspense. And a few meters away their rapists.

S. was only 11 years old when she was repeatedly raped by three men, she became pregnant and gave birth to a child. Overcoming the fear of retaliation, his father filed a lawsuit, but a few days ago the sentence was dropped like a brick: between one and a half and two years in prison for the aggressors.

A resolution that condemns Karim A. (36 years old), Abdeluahed B. (29 years old) and Yusef Z. (22 years old and Karim’s nephew) That sparked outrage in the North African country and brought to the table what appears to be an endemic justice problem: the lenient sentences meted out to rapists.

According to a study prepared in 2020 by the feminist group Masaktach (I will not be silent) analyzing 1,169 cases from 21 courts of first instance in Morocco, 80% of those convicted of rape receive a sentence of less than 5 years. In practice, they spend an average of 3 years and 1 month in prison.

Moroccan law provides for between 5 and 10 years in prison for this crime, which rises to between 10 and 20 if the victim is a minor, and up to 30 if he loses his virginity. The latter is the case of S., but the court in Rabat applied three mitigating circumstances and reduced the sentence to the minimum possible.

Two attackers, 30 meters away
A year ago, S. gave birth to a boy, who is being cared for by his parents and grandmother in the region east of Rabat, which has a hard time making a living from agriculture and animal husbandry. His family cultivates several hectares of potatoes, pumpkins and grains near a nearly dry river.

Mohamed, his father, receives numerous calls these days from journalists who want to see him. He and little S. follow EFE in the car on the way home, and the cell phone doesn’t stop ringing. A girl in a pink tracksuit runs away from the sight of a shriveled body. When she speaks, her voice sounds husky like an adult’s and she touches her hands nervously.

Upon arrival, two dogs bark, some chickens escape from the car and grandma comes out to say goodbye. His name is Jaiat and he is, he says, “over 50 years old,” but his wrinkles suggest much more. She and her son Mohamed explain that it all started in 2021 when the grandfather fell ill.

“(Silavci) came to see my father. They attacked a girl. Forty days after my father died, I went to the market and a man told me a story. I was dizzy, I didn’t know what to say. She is a girl who doesn’t know,” he says.

She says that the two attackers live 30 meters from her house. SWKarim and Yusef, uncle and nephew, who saw S. grow up. Karim’s mother, Mohamed says, was his father’s cousin. The third rapist lives 400 meters away.

‘Rape culture’
S., says Mohamed, is no longer the same. “She doesn’t know if she’s a girl or an adult, she lives in a vacuum. She doesn’t want to play with her brothers and sisters.” And this has worsened since the sentence, which today begins to be reviewed at the appeals court in Rabat.

Mohamed will come to the end seeking justice for his daughter. He was the one who condemned, going over the fear. “Their family put pressure on me not to go to the police, but I don’t accept punishment, I don’t want it to happen again. I’m doing it for my children and the children of others.”

The case of S. shakes the country, and Justice Minister Abdelatif Uahbi has promised tougher sentences. But for platforms like Masakatch, the problem starts with the police, prosecutors and judges.

According to Loubna Rais, one of its members, in Morocco there is a “rape culture” that “does not stop at the doors of the courts”, where “the violence suffered by women and girls is trivialized, their suffering is minimized”. If the penalties were applied as provided by law, it would already be an achievement, he says.

fear, hope and light
S.’s grandmother, dressed in a pink skirt and an apron, is anxious from the moment the rapist is released from prison. “S. is very afraid of them. He will die of a heart attack or throw himself into a well if he sees them,” provides.

The girl is fine, she says, because she has been training to become a hairdresser in Tiflet for four months, thanks to the help of the Insaf association. – I want to work in a salon – he affirms hopefully with a smile.

Far from her ears, when asked what happened, the grandmother’s head goes straight to when her great-grandson was born, a lively boy with big eyes, “shy” and who likes to play.

On that day, he explains smiling, between tears and looking at the sky, electricity returned to the village after a year without electricity. – As if the light brought us.