Thank you very much. It has often been assessed to what extent the new Moroccan family code, which was issued in 2004,
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.
And it's already touched upon these issues a little bit.
But the extent to which the law has changed the relationship between citizens and states and redefined the states,
declaring the state's role has mostly been overlooked.
The most important change the Family Code of 2004, introduced from a state controlled perspective,
is the new requirement for citizens to register their marriage and divorce.
Previously, a registration was not necessarily necessary, and the groom and the bride just turned to the local imam.
And in the presence of witnesses and the were the traditional notaries,
the imam would pronounce the party how the process would ask the court to seal the bond of marriage.
I would argue that's during the process of family law reform.
Redefinition of state society relations took place during which the state assumes new
responsibilities and aspect expanded its reach into the previously private sphere,
partly by administrative means. In this process, the state establishes a new monopoly of control and definition over what is the family.
The newly assumed dominance over family matters meant that these were more and more
taken out of the hands of the religious establishments and in the hands of the state.
A very similar process happened in Germany during the 19th century,
when Bismarck famously introduced civil marriage after a long lasting conflict with the church, the so-called couture camp.
So I would also like to stress that's in a historical analysis of this development.
It's dangerous because we often overlook that similar developments have taken place in Europe,
which are very similar to the developments currently taking place in Morocco and other states.
I would argue that the redefinition of state's responsibilities was further facilitated by a general process of secularisation,
during which secular capital was seen in Crete as increasingly valuable to contribute to family matters.
This can already be observed during the process of family law reform when in comparison to the process which took place in the 1990s,
the contribution of laypeople to the reform in 2004 was seen as increasingly valuable and positive as
this growing valuation of secular capital allowed for the creation of the new profession of social,
social assistance and its legitimacy as civil servant.
Trends and Project Management, Psychology, Mediation, economics, gender and human rights include among other secular subjects.
The profession was formally introduced in 2011 as part of the UN funded program to increase
women's access to the judiciary and to improve the application of the Family Court.
Besides the increasing secular secularisation trends,
the creation of the position of social assistance underlines the new understanding
of state responsibilities and the state's expansion into the private sphere,
during which the linkages between states and citizen have increased.
I would now like to briefly explain a little what the role of the social assistance is and how he operates.
And in order to show the increasing penetration of the family, both by the state,
and then conclude that this role has been part of a more general process of secularisation that touches upon other areas as well.
According to the guidelines, the Ministry of Justice has elaborated in order to clarify and define the tasks,
qualifications and competencies of all civil servants.
The socialist system is supposed to facilitate the work of the judge.
He or she will file a report in the case of a minor marriage.
In the cases of polygamous marriage, among other cases,
to provide the judge was accurate information regarding the social situation of the conflicting parties.
The justice.
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.
The idea is that judicial procedures will become more efficient and that way the social assistance is also supposed to help families
who face difficult situation or experience internal conflicts to find solutions to the problems and to mediate between them.
So what are the main tasks of the social systems?
The social system which works for the judge, he or she would conduct a social inquiry by visiting the family home,
interviewing people in cases of kafala, loosely translated as adoption, the marriage of minors in Morocco, the legal age of now 18.
But the judge in specific cases can can authorise the marriage before 18, which happens very frequently.
The marriage of mentally disabled people, custody cases, divorce and polygamy.
According to interviews conducted with social assistance in Tunisia and Casablanca in adoption and custody cases,
the social systems would seek to realise the best interest of the child.
And we have already heard that in the previous presentation as this is a requirement of international conventions,
Morocco has signs and this very underlines the increasing penetration of
international legal mechanisms of family matters in cases of under age marriage.
The social assistance visits the family was placed to demand in order to see whether financial constraints obliged the family
to marry the daughter and whether the girl is pursuing an education that could be interrupted in the case of marriage.
According to the social assistance interviews,
judges have dismissed cases in which families wanted to marry their daughters for financial reasons as illegitimate.
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.
But the social system would also conduct interviews with the girl and her fiancee
in private in order to see whether they were pressured into the marriage.
He would also do a follow up after in case the marriage has been concluded,
in order to check if an underage marriage is good or bad and whether there are negative implications for the girl.
In cases of polygamy, the socialist system would conduct the survey in order to investigate whether the first wife was physically healthy
and informed about the husband's husband taking a second wife and investigated whether she has given her consent.
Other measures of interests are the material circumstances of the men asking for a polygamous marriage,
whether he is capable of financially financially supporting two wives equally.
One of the social assistance statements explaining her experience.
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.
I then do my report, and often the judge refuses the polygamous marriage and bases himself on my findings.
Another area in which the social system would intervene is so reconciliation.
In cases of divorce, the justice can delegated the obligatory reconciliation session,
which is fixed in the 2004 law to the social assistant who then carries out the session in order to mediate between conflicting parties.
And according to experience, these sessions normally takes 2 to 3 hours and results are very mixed.
Sometimes the reconciliation process is successful.
In other cases, it's not. The social system faces considerably difficulties in their job.
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,
which has been criticised by my colleagues in the courts by Women's Rights Association.
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.
But now I have more, more. Perience how to react and people are happy that when they realise that they are listened to.
So while practising this job, most social assistant said that they gained more security and more respect us.
Sometimes they try to circumvent the lack of experience and their very young age
by into inventing a certain sympathetic narrative as one of these systems admits.
Sometimes we are obliged to say that we are married and have children.
There was one case where a woman told me that she thought numbers of the of women in her husband's calendar.
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.
You always have to create a feeling of commonality.
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.
The social assistance sometimes refused access to the home in the first place and needs to
present this authorisation by the attorney in order to convince people to allow him access.
Particularly, men feel that the social system is biased because a large majority of them are women.
Only two out of the 24 trained assistance in 2011 were men.
One of these assistants explains her experience.
Men sometimes say you are in favour of the woman and you defend the interests of women.
They think that what they want is for women.
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.
The Social Assistance also facility also faces difficulties related to material resources.
Sometimes they cannot do with the follow up of cases because they don't have enough social assistance operating.
And they also sometimes feel that they are not adequately trained for the job and to deal with severe psychological conditions,
as that is sometimes the case. The skills and training of the social assistance.
Underline a general process of secularisation that can be observed in the judicial field as well as in other fields.
The guidelines drafted by the Ministry of Justice list the competencies necessary to carry out the profession of social assistance.
He is required to know, among other things, the Moroccan Constitution, the organisation of the Judiciary, Criminal Family Law,
international conventions, moral quest ratified in relation to women and children, dialects and languages.
The professional skills seen as important are the capacity to give psychological supports.
Knowledge of statistics, team working skills and sense of responsibility.
Even though the main area of intervention is nexus of family law, which is still perceived and referred to as Islamic law,
religious knowledge or knowledge of the Sharia is not stated as a necessary competence as it has the latitude.
Nothing add to the lifestyle associated in Taji, where most of the social assistants are trained.
Religious education is not part of the curriculum.
The social assistance said that when they talked about the Family Court, they briefly touched upon the Islamic dimension of the court.
This is then used in order to improve their communication skills.
One of the assistant states we know very well that the verses of the Quran that talk about reconciliation,
whether we use them or not during a reconciliation session,
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,
such as the constitution or international conventions of which are taught as separate subjects.
The increasing value of cultural capital that is not religious can also be observed by looking
at the educational backgrounds of judges that applied the form of the Islamic family law.
In the family courts, which were established after 2004.
Statistics by the Ministry of Justice show that the number of candidates who hold a degree from Sharia
faculty that entered the Institute Superior Court to the institution responsible for training the judges,
the future judges is very low. Between 1990 and 2011, only about 2% of.
All candidates who pass the exams to enter the institute had a degree from Sharia faculty.
All other judges studied secular law. The overwhelming majority had studied private law secularism.
Only in 2009 was the number of Sharia graduates slightly higher,
which was which was seen as an attack on the institution by responsible at the Ministry of Justice,
who just couldn't explain himself how that could happen,
since the exams are designed in a way to keep the Sharia graduates out of the system because they are seen as less qualified.
The work of the social assistants has been criticised by women's rights organisations and court employees.
It has been remarked that there are too few social assistance by employees in the courts and organisations.
Likewise, the UN, the state only started recruiting assistants in 2011.
So the whole development is very recent of literally hundreds.
Future social assistance were supposed to be recruited due to a lack of appropriate candidates.
The Ministry of Justice then only recruited 32, and out of the 32 only 24 finished the formation of six months in 2012.
The ministry has recruited hundreds of social assistance, which will start working this year.
The aim is that in bigger cities there will be 2 to 3 in social assistance and in smaller cities one per tribunals.
Despite these obvious shortcomings, which are partly due to the recent creation of the position,
the institutionalisation of the Social Assistance supports the idea that through family law reform,
a reduced mission of state responsibilities took place during which linkages between the states and the citizens have increased.
This was partly the case through an increasing administrator's bond between citizen and state,
and due to the fact that people need to register the marriage and divorce,
which in reality it remains an aspiration due to the very high number of individuals took marriages.
Nevertheless, in the course of this process, the state has literally entered the home of the citizen.
The most private nexus the family has become nexus of of public concern.
The state becomes a social mediator that sees himself responsible for mediating between different factions.
The guidelines of the Ministry of Justice also state that the social assistance,
as well as the judges and family courts, are supposed to improve the image of the Ministry of Justice.
Well, in my interviews with social assistance and judges, likewise, they never stated that as one of their main responsibilities.
But it seems likely that the state sees this new profession as a mechanism to improve its
image by presenting itself as a mediator and by trying to address people's private concerns.
Thank you.