Single Mothers

In Morocco having a child out of wedlock is highly stigmatized. These are often some of the most marginalized women in Moroccan society. Many young girls are given marriage promises from male suitors and once they become pregnant the man runs away and refuses to recognize the child. The girls or women are then further rejected from her family and community as losing your virginity before marriage is one of the ultimate sins. You are now seen as being spoiled and of no community value.
Girls who become pregnant due to rape are also a cause of concern. Societies do not protect women easily in these situations. First if a women is raped and wishes to condemn the aggressor she needs 4 male Muslim witnesses to attest to the assault. Also the man who rapes the girl can escape persecution by agreeing to marry his victim, even if it is against her will. So why would any women want to report such abuses if she would have to end up marrying the man and publicly letting the community know she is no longer a virgin?
These young girls and women are then forced out into the streets to beg and fend for themselves and their growing fetus. Social institutions were just recently put into place in some urban areas but are still not fully utilized. There is also a lack of hospital centers and unwed mothers are not aware that they have access to these centers as their children are preserved by the community as illegitimate. There have also been reports of nurses refusing to care for unwed mothers and calling them prostitutes and are often left unattended or rejected completely by clinics and hospitals. Children born out of wedlock are also labeled ‘X’ on their birth certificates and the single status of the women is highlighted on her hospital file.
In the worse cases, the mothers abandon their children upon birth or perform infanticide to keep grace in their household. Women who decide to keep children often fall into the deadly profession of prostitution, it is one of the only communities that accept them and take them in. Here their health and dignity are further jeopardized. For example I have a friend who had a child and the father is not in the picture. She now works as a prostitute in the local coffee shops to help provide for her and her child. They are also shunned from my village and very rarely are seen outside. When I first got to my village people told me to stay away from her as she was spoiled and a bad influence but I realized this is not so. The child also has a cleft pallet and needs money for the surgery. Her mother fortunately still helps to care for the child and I cannot imagine if that support was not there.
This is even more upsetting for me as I was raised without a father for the first 7 years of my life and my mother had the support of her family and community that she needed to raise me. She was able to have access to a decent job, schools and daycare programs accepted me despite my status and my family gave me more than enough love and support to help me grow into a healthy, educated, happy human being. I never remember having to think of myself as a child born without a father until much later in life but not in a way that upset my social inclusion. It was not only the support of my mother and grandmother that helped me get to where I am but also my grandfather and uncle. If my mother had me here, we might have never made it. I might have ended up abandoned on the front steps of the police station or grew up in the environment of street life and prostitution.
It rattles my brain and breaks my heart that these children and mothers should not be given the support and opportunity that I have so fortunately experienced. There are barely any organizations to help these women and media and the government does not dare touch the taboo subject. The silence needs to be broken.