THE CHALLENGE
In Morocco, a deep-rooted patriarchal system and widespread gender discrimination put immense pressure on women to conform to the roles of wife and mother. Sadly, child marriage is often perpetuated by families afraid of the risks of extramarital pregnancy and sexual relations, anxious to protect the family’s honor. Tragically, girls as young as 7 years old are sometimes forced to marry.
Considerable progress had been made in recent decades to reduce child marriage in Morocco. However, this harmful practice remains widespread in remote regions, owing to factors such as poverty and a lack of education.
THE SOLUTIONS WE'RE PROPOSING
W4’s field partner in Morocco, Fondation YTTO, works to inform communities living in remote rural areas about the harms of child marriage. Awareness-raising caravans travel to these remote regions to carry out training workshops. The caravans have already proven very effective in helping to raise awareness about the problem of child marriage, protecting at-risk girls and helping local populations to set up their own associations to work to end child marriage in their communities and to connect with the Ministry of Justice.
The objective of this year’s program is to engage with people in the Rif region, a chain of mountains in northern Morocco. Volunteer teams will drive “awareness-raising caravans” to villages across the region to carry out awareness-raising workshops and discussion groups with families and community leaders. The program will also incorporate artistic activities and poetry in their awareness-raising events for local village populations. As part of the program, a team of legal advisors assists village communities in carrying out the legal birth registration of young girls in the community, which is a very effective means of helping to protect girls from child marriage.
The caravans also organize children’s and women’s rights workshops, in addition to vocational skills training to help unemployed women to acquire jobs and financial independence, all of which contributes to raising awareness and promoting the empowerment of women in the village communities.
THE IMPACT OF GIVING
Your donation can help protect at-risk girls from child marriage. You can make a life-changing, even life-saving, difference. By funding awareness-raising caravans, you can help to raise awareness about the dangers of child marriage among communities in the Rif region. The objective is to send caravans to 15 villages in the region, which can benefit up to 25,000 people, including girls, their families and entire communities! Your giving will help provide communities in remote areas with the education, information, and legal assistance they need to better protect girls from child marriage and to protect girls and women from gender violence. By donating to this program, you contribute to real, sustainable change across entire communities, helping to put an end to child marriage.
Together, we can end child marriage!