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Thank you very much. It has often been assessed to what extent the new Moroccan family code, which was issued in 2004,

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has improved the position of women under law and the extent to which the reform has contributed to a so-called feminisation of the public sphere.

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And it's already touched upon these issues a little bit.

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But the extent to which the law has changed the relationship between citizens and states and redefined the states,

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declaring the state's role has mostly been overlooked.

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The most important change the Family Code of 2004, introduced from a state controlled perspective,

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is the new requirement for citizens to register their marriage and divorce.

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Previously, a registration was not necessarily necessary, and the groom and the bride just turned to the local imam.

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And in the presence of witnesses and the were the traditional notaries,

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the imam would pronounce the party how the process would ask the court to seal the bond of marriage.

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I would argue that's during the process of family law reform.

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Redefinition of state society relations took place during which the state assumes new

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responsibilities and aspect expanded its reach into the previously private sphere,

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partly by administrative means. In this process, the state establishes a new monopoly of control and definition over what is the family.

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The newly assumed dominance over family matters meant that these were more and more

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taken out of the hands of the religious establishments and in the hands of the state.

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A very similar process happened in Germany during the 19th century,

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when Bismarck famously introduced civil marriage after a long lasting conflict with the church, the so-called couture camp.

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So I would also like to stress that's in a historical analysis of this development.

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It's dangerous because we often overlook that similar developments have taken place in Europe,

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which are very similar to the developments currently taking place in Morocco and other states.

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I would argue that the redefinition of state's responsibilities was further facilitated by a general process of secularisation,

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during which secular capital was seen in Crete as increasingly valuable to contribute to family matters.

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This can already be observed during the process of family law reform when in comparison to the process which took place in the 1990s,

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the contribution of laypeople to the reform in 2004 was seen as increasingly valuable and positive as

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this growing valuation of secular capital allowed for the creation of the new profession of social,

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social assistance and its legitimacy as civil servant.

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Trends and Project Management, Psychology, Mediation, economics, gender and human rights include among other secular subjects.

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The profession was formally introduced in 2011 as part of the UN funded program to increase

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women's access to the judiciary and to improve the application of the Family Court.

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Besides the increasing secular secularisation trends,

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the creation of the position of social assistance underlines the new understanding

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of state responsibilities and the state's expansion into the private sphere,

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during which the linkages between states and citizen have increased.

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I would now like to briefly explain a little what the role of the social assistance is and how he operates.

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And in order to show the increasing penetration of the family, both by the state,

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and then conclude that this role has been part of a more general process of secularisation that touches upon other areas as well.

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According to the guidelines, the Ministry of Justice has elaborated in order to clarify and define the tasks,

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qualifications and competencies of all civil servants.

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The socialist system is supposed to facilitate the work of the judge.

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He or she will file a report in the case of a minor marriage.

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In the cases of polygamous marriage, among other cases,

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to provide the judge was accurate information regarding the social situation of the conflicting parties.

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The justice.

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Then able to make a more informed decision and issue the judgement more promptly as a delay in judgements is the major problem in Morocco.

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The idea is that judicial procedures will become more efficient and that way the social assistance is also supposed to help families

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who face difficult situation or experience internal conflicts to find solutions to the problems and to mediate between them.

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So what are the main tasks of the social systems?

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The social system which works for the judge, he or she would conduct a social inquiry by visiting the family home,

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interviewing people in cases of kafala, loosely translated as adoption, the marriage of minors in Morocco, the legal age of now 18.

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But the judge in specific cases can can authorise the marriage before 18, which happens very frequently.

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The marriage of mentally disabled people, custody cases, divorce and polygamy.

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According to interviews conducted with social assistance in Tunisia and Casablanca in adoption and custody cases,

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the social systems would seek to realise the best interest of the child.

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And we have already heard that in the previous presentation as this is a requirement of international conventions,

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Morocco has signs and this very underlines the increasing penetration of

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international legal mechanisms of family matters in cases of under age marriage.

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The social assistance visits the family was placed to demand in order to see whether financial constraints obliged the family

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to marry the daughter and whether the girl is pursuing an education that could be interrupted in the case of marriage.

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According to the social assistance interviews,

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judges have dismissed cases in which families wanted to marry their daughters for financial reasons as illegitimate.

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It also includes checking the medical certificate, which needs to be presented to the judge in order to to certify the physical maturity of the girl.

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But the social system would also conduct interviews with the girl and her fiancee

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in private in order to see whether they were pressured into the marriage.

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He would also do a follow up after in case the marriage has been concluded,

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in order to check if an underage marriage is good or bad and whether there are negative implications for the girl.

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In cases of polygamy, the socialist system would conduct the survey in order to investigate whether the first wife was physically healthy

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and informed about the husband's husband taking a second wife and investigated whether she has given her consent.

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Other measures of interests are the material circumstances of the men asking for a polygamous marriage,

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whether he is capable of financially financially supporting two wives equally.

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One of the social assistance statements explaining her experience.

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Often the husbands say that the woman is a woman, and when I do my home visit, I find that the woman is not but young and healthy.

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I then do my report, and often the judge refuses the polygamous marriage and bases himself on my findings.

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Another area in which the social system would intervene is so reconciliation.

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In cases of divorce, the justice can delegated the obligatory reconciliation session,

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which is fixed in the 2004 law to the social assistant who then carries out the session in order to mediate between conflicting parties.

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And according to experience, these sessions normally takes 2 to 3 hours and results are very mixed.

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Sometimes the reconciliation process is successful.

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In other cases, it's not. The social system faces considerably difficulties in their job.

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They are all very young. They've only been recent graduates of this institute, and most of them are in their early twenties and lack experience,

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which has been criticised by my colleagues in the courts by Women's Rights Association.

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One of the social assistance interviewed said at the beginning it was difficult because people always said, Oh, you are so young, you are not a judge.

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But now I have more, more. Perience how to react and people are happy that when they realise that they are listened to.

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So while practising this job, most social assistant said that they gained more security and more respect us.

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Sometimes they try to circumvent the lack of experience and their very young age

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by into inventing a certain sympathetic narrative as one of these systems admits.

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Sometimes we are obliged to say that we are married and have children.

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There was one case where a woman told me that she thought numbers of the of women in her husband's calendar.

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I said that I have been in the same situation and that I found that all the contacts of my husband were professional working contacts.

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You always have to create a feeling of commonality.

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You have to cite examples of your own family as people are not familiar with this new state practice of interference in private matters in such a way.

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The social assistance sometimes refused access to the home in the first place and needs to

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present this authorisation by the attorney in order to convince people to allow him access.

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Particularly, men feel that the social system is biased because a large majority of them are women.

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Only two out of the 24 trained assistance in 2011 were men.

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One of these assistants explains her experience.

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Men sometimes say you are in favour of the woman and you defend the interests of women.

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They think that what they want is for women.

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Be always, say, objective and explain that you don't want is for the family and that we look to realise the interest of the family of a single person.

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The Social Assistance also facility also faces difficulties related to material resources.

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Sometimes they cannot do with the follow up of cases because they don't have enough social assistance operating.

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And they also sometimes feel that they are not adequately trained for the job and to deal with severe psychological conditions,

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as that is sometimes the case. The skills and training of the social assistance.

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Underline a general process of secularisation that can be observed in the judicial field as well as in other fields.

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The guidelines drafted by the Ministry of Justice list the competencies necessary to carry out the profession of social assistance.

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He is required to know, among other things, the Moroccan Constitution, the organisation of the Judiciary, Criminal Family Law,

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international conventions, moral quest ratified in relation to women and children, dialects and languages.

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The professional skills seen as important are the capacity to give psychological supports.

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Knowledge of statistics, team working skills and sense of responsibility.

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Even though the main area of intervention is nexus of family law, which is still perceived and referred to as Islamic law,

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religious knowledge or knowledge of the Sharia is not stated as a necessary competence as it has the latitude.

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Nothing add to the lifestyle associated in Taji, where most of the social assistants are trained.

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Religious education is not part of the curriculum.

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The social assistance said that when they talked about the Family Court, they briefly touched upon the Islamic dimension of the court.

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This is then used in order to improve their communication skills.

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One of the assistant states we know very well that the verses of the Quran that talk about reconciliation,

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whether we use them or not during a reconciliation session,

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depends on the couple of knowledge of Islamic law is in this sense seen as a communication tool rather than subject of importance of its own,

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such as the constitution or international conventions of which are taught as separate subjects.

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The increasing value of cultural capital that is not religious can also be observed by looking

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at the educational backgrounds of judges that applied the form of the Islamic family law.

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In the family courts, which were established after 2004.

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Statistics by the Ministry of Justice show that the number of candidates who hold a degree from Sharia

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faculty that entered the Institute Superior Court to the institution responsible for training the judges,

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the future judges is very low. Between 1990 and 2011, only about 2% of.

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All candidates who pass the exams to enter the institute had a degree from Sharia faculty.

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All other judges studied secular law. The overwhelming majority had studied private law secularism.

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Only in 2009 was the number of Sharia graduates slightly higher,

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which was which was seen as an attack on the institution by responsible at the Ministry of Justice,

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who just couldn't explain himself how that could happen,

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since the exams are designed in a way to keep the Sharia graduates out of the system because they are seen as less qualified.

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The work of the social assistants has been criticised by women's rights organisations and court employees.

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It has been remarked that there are too few social assistance by employees in the courts and organisations.

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Likewise, the UN, the state only started recruiting assistants in 2011.

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So the whole development is very recent of literally hundreds.

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Future social assistance were supposed to be recruited due to a lack of appropriate candidates.

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The Ministry of Justice then only recruited 32, and out of the 32 only 24 finished the formation of six months in 2012.

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The ministry has recruited hundreds of social assistance, which will start working this year.

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The aim is that in bigger cities there will be 2 to 3 in social assistance and in smaller cities one per tribunals.

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Despite these obvious shortcomings, which are partly due to the recent creation of the position,

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the institutionalisation of the Social Assistance supports the idea that through family law reform,

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a reduced mission of state responsibilities took place during which linkages between the states and the citizens have increased.

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This was partly the case through an increasing administrator's bond between citizen and state,

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and due to the fact that people need to register the marriage and divorce,

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which in reality it remains an aspiration due to the very high number of individuals took marriages.

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Nevertheless, in the course of this process, the state has literally entered the home of the citizen.

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The most private nexus the family has become nexus of of public concern.

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The state becomes a social mediator that sees himself responsible for mediating between different factions.

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The guidelines of the Ministry of Justice also state that the social assistance,

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as well as the judges and family courts, are supposed to improve the image of the Ministry of Justice.

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Well, in my interviews with social assistance and judges, likewise, they never stated that as one of their main responsibilities.

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But it seems likely that the state sees this new profession as a mechanism to improve its

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image by presenting itself as a mediator and by trying to address people's private concerns.

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Thank you.