Address of the Speaker of the House of Representatives at Inauguration of Training Workshop on: “The Role of the Parliament in Controlling and Monitoring the Laws Safeguarding Women’s Rights”
“Esteemed Regional Representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Esteemed President of the Arab Women Parliamentarians Network for Equality (Ra’edat),
Honorable Parliamentarians,
Esteemed experts,
Ladies and gentlemen,
First of all, I am pleased to welcome you all to this training workshop that we inaugurate today on: “The Role of the Parliament in Controlling and Monitoring the Laws Safeguarding Women’s Rights,” organized in partnership between the House of Representatives, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Arab Women Parliamentarians Network for Equality (Ra’edat).
I also seize this opportunity to praise this prominent initiative that reflects the continuous efforts of organisms to evoke the human rights aspect of the parliamentary practice, advance knowledge on women’s rights, and shed light on the role and responsibility of the Parliament in ensuring the existence of laws and public policies that respect gender equality through establishing gender-sensitive legal frameworks and public policies in all areas, in order to enable the construction of a democratic society where all individuals enjoy their full rights without any discrimination between women and men, and also help in countering the imbalances linked to the structural balance between genders and fight the stereotypes that anchor discrimination and inequality and sustain gender hierarchy and women inferiority.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Kingdom of Morocco has an institutional and political framework open to women’s rights and gender equality. In this respect, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may Allah protect him, granted great attention to women’s questions since his earlier speeches and recalled the imperative of respecting women’s rights on several occasions. The last example of His Majesty’s initiatives in this field was the creation of a Committee that His Majesty tasked with revising the Family Code, following a participatory approach, and working on overcoming the shortcomings that characterize its implementation. His Majesty also expressed the attachment of the Kingdom of Morocco to human values and its engagement in the international human rights system and urged all concerned institutions and bodies to pursue their efforts and play their role in defending human rights in all their dimensions.
Besides, the 2011 Constitution of the Kingdom of Morocco plainly stipulates equality between women and men in civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights and liberties, and the necessity that laws must include provisions that encourage the equality of opportunities between women and men in accessing elected functions. The Constitution also includes provisions that urge the State, public institutions, and local governments to mobilize all the available means to facilitate the benefit of citizens (women and men) from all rights on an equal footing. The Moroccan legal arsenal has also witnessed a set of amendments to several laws, the abrogation of numerous discriminatory provisions, and the enactment of new regulations to achieve gender equality.
Additionally, the Kingdom of Morocco has proven its commitment within the scope of the United Nations Human Rights System, as it ratified several international human rights instruments and conventions, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Kingdom also remained keen to interact positively with the recommendations issued by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The most striking example is integrating the principle of gender equality and positive discrimination to increase women’s representation in elected councils. For its part, the Parliament, with all its components, played an essential role in the progress achieved in this field, thanks to its political will to combat discrimination against women, which was mirrored, in addition to the initiatives linked to its constitutional functions, in the Rules of Procedure of the House of Representatives that dedicated a whole title to equality and parity, by virtue of which was created the Thematic Working Group on Equality and Parity, and stipulated the allocation of a percentage of responsibility positions within the House to women Representatives.
The interaction of the Kingdom of Morocco in the area of combating discrimination against women does not only cover the relevant agreements, but transcends them to the international action plans, particularly the Beijing Platform for Action that underscored that women’s rights are an integral part of human rights, and made of revising laws and administrative practices to guarantee equal rights for women one of its strategic objectives, as well as the Sustainable Development Agenda that is largely axed around objectives targeting gender equality, particularly the Fifth Sustainable Development Goal that focuses on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls, and other specialized documents in health, employment, and economic empowerment, for instance.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I conclude this address by lauding the fruitful cooperation between the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Moroccan House of Representatives, and I shall congratulate it, in the person of its Regional Representative, for its important initiatives to reinforce women’s rights worldwide. I shall also thank the Arab Women Parliamentarians Network for Equality (Ra’edat) for their strenuous efforts to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women through parliamentary functions. I would also like to praise the themes chosen for this training workshop and thank the esteemed experts among us for their contribution.
I wish you success in the proceedings of this training workshop and thank you for your keen listening.”