Despite inclinations of softening the legislation, the voluntary termination of pregnancy remains liable from six months to five years in prison in the Kingdom.
Le Monde with AFP
A teenager died following a clandestine abortion in a rural region of south-eastern Morocco, local media reported on Wednesday, September 14. The 14 -year -old girl was buried Tuesday evening in the village of Boumia (Midelt province), according to a video of Chouf TV, an online channel present on site.
This news has aroused the indignation of feminist NGOs. “Abortion took place at the home of a young man who sexually exploited the victim,” the spring of dignity said on Tuesday in a statement, a coalition of Moroccan feminist associations.
Following the drama, the royal gendarmerie challenged “the mother of the victim, a nurse and the owner of the house where the clandestine abortion took place,” the public channel 2M said on Wednesday on her site. A fourth suspect was then arrested because suspected of having “assisted during abortion”, according to the same source, which adds that the prosecution’s investigation continues.
“This tragedy is the consequence of a combination of institutionalized violence suffered by women,” feminist activist Betty Lachgar told AFP. Voluntary pregnancy interruption (abortion) remains liable from six months to five years in prison in Morocco. The penal code sanctions both the abort (from six months to two years in prison) and the people who practice the act (from one to five years in prison).
Morocco engaged in 2015 in a deep debate on “the emergency” of a relaxation of its legislation in the face of the scourge of hundreds of clandestine abortions practiced every day in sometimes disastrous health conditions. An official commission had in the process recommended that abortion becomes authorized in “some cases of force majeure”, especially in the event of rape or serious malformations. But no law has since come to confirm these recommendations, ardently supported by defenders of women’s rights.