Morocco’s Driss El Yazami interviewed on Morocco’s progress in promoting women’s rights:
In the same week Egypt celebrated its five year anniversary of the legendary uprising that served to oust former President Hosni Mubarak and ignite a series of protests across Arab nations, on January 27, 250 of the world’s eminent Islamic leaders convened to discuss the rights of religious minorities and the obligation to protect them in Muslim majority states at the invitation of King Mohammed VI. The result was the Marrakesh Declaration.
This latest installment of Morocco’s push for human rights protections and policy reform is in addition to other measures where Morocco has been making headlines for its reformations and actions on various human rights policies and initiatives for the past two decades.
As a nation, Morocco is a signatory to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Convention against Torture, the UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Since 2008, more than 80 reports have been issued on human rights in Morocco from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and the State Department.
In December 2008, King Mohammed VI publically banned discrimination against women and officially lifted all Morocco’s previous reservations on CEDAW, stating “Our country has become an international actor of which the progress and daring initiatives in this matter are readily recognized.”..[FULL STORY]