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A screen grab from a video shows a protest march against the draft law by disabled children’s families.
A screen grab from a video shows a protest march against the draft law by disabled children’s families. Photograph: Courtesy Mohamed El Faziki
A screen grab from a video shows a protest march against the draft law by disabled children’s families. Photograph: Courtesy Mohamed El Faziki

Morocco: activists claim draft rights law fails to treat disabled people as equals

This article is more than 8 years old

Critics claim proposed legislation designed to benefit disabled people focuses on prevention and diagnosis rather than rights and legal protection

A draft law on rights for disabled people that has gone before the Moroccan parliament has been criticised by civil society groups for perpetuating outdated notions of disability. Moroccan disability associations are being supported by the campaign group Human Rights Watch, which recently wrote to the Moroccan parliament calling on lawmakers to ensure that the draft law accords full rights to disabled people.

Human Rights Watch says draft law 97.13 “on the protection and advancement of persons with disabilities” focuses too heavily on preventing and diagnosing disability, rather than giving disabled people rights and legal protection.

“People with disabilities in Morocco have been treated as objects of charity rather than as equal citizens, leading to stigma and discrimination,” said Eric Goldstein, deputy Middle East and north Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Morocco was one of the first countries to sign the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which promotes a human rights approach to disability rather than focusing on medical issues. It specifically calls on governments to ensure disabled people can enjoy “full and effective participation and inclusion in society”.

One of the major stumbling blocks to full inclusion in Moroccan society has been the right to education. Some disabled children have missed out altogether, putting the onus to provide learning on disabled people’s associations instead of the state school system.

“I didn’t want my daughter to go to a special school,” says Soumia Amrani, mother of Aya, 22, who is autistic and still lives at home with her parents. “When Aya was two, she saw her sisters going to school and she wanted to go too, but there was nowhere available for her. I tried to educate her myself, at home with the help of specially trained teachers, but it was very difficult.”

Amrani says she is disappointed with the proposals for the new law, and feels it doesn’t do enough to give disabled children the right to attend regular schools. She feels that money earmarked for disabled people’s associations to deliver schooling would be better spent making existing schools more accessible and training teachers to help children with special educational requirements.

“Moroccans like to see themselves as kindly,” she says, “but we don’t want charity. Aya has spent her whole life living on the margins, with people feeling sorry for her and sorry for me. Her life has been ruined because her right to be included has not been recognised.”

There has also been criticism that disabled people’s groups are not being fully involved in the debate and consultations on the new law. “We’re very disappointed,” says Mohamed Khadri, president of the civil society umbrella group Collective for the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. He says that a previous draft law, drawn up after a consultative and widely praised national conference in 2008, was dropped when a new minister of solidarity, women, family and social development was appointed. “The draft law was abandoned in favour of this new framework law without any consultation with civil society. Now we’re starting again, just wasting time, and disabled people continue to have no protection for their rights. The minister must do more to make sure we are consulted.”

A school teacher reads a text in the ancient Amazigh language in Rabat. Amazigh was introduced in elementary classes in 2004, after King Mohammed VI set up a royal institute to promote Berber language and culture. Photograph: Abdelhak Senna/AFP/Getty Images

This is the first piece of legislation on disability that Morocco has put before parliament since signing the UN convention in 2009. The draft has been through the lower chamber of parliament, but has yet to be approved by the upper house. Several attempts were made to approach the minister, Bassima Hakkaoui, but no one from her office was available for comment.

For Amrani, time is running out. “I was hopeful when the debate began on the new law that things might have moved on,” she says. “But from what I see now, it’s all about giving money to civil society associations to take responsibility for these people who the government seems to think are unable to lead a normal life. I see nothing in the text about protecting Aya’s rights, nothing about making sure she can find a job, look after herself or live in her own home if I wasn’t around. I’m sure my daughter could have had a completely different life if her right to be included had been recognised from the start.”


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