Closing Seminar on Promoting Women’s Rights and their Role in Transitional Justice Process in Morocco

In collaboration with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and with financial support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Advisory Council on Human Rights (CCDH) organized a closing seminar on the Project of promoting women’s rights and their role in transitional justice process in Morocco, on September 28, 2009.

During the seminar, the CCDH President, Mr. Ahmed Herzenni, said that this project enabled the achievement of great grains. It included the gender approach in the culture of new social strata, which promoted the creation of spaces dedicated to the exchange of experiences. "the Moroccan experience in transitional justice identified a large number of challenges, and the Equity and Reconciliation Commission and after it the CCDH sought to implement the gender approach in all steps that followed, which made the experience more complete, rich and distinguished and allowed it to have the respect of the international community" said Ahmed Herzenni.

Ms. Zineb Touimi Benjoulloun, representative of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Morocco, emphasized the role of this Fund in supporting the efforts made by Morocco to strengthen the contribution of women to transitional justice. She said that the role of women remains primordial in the peace processes. However, they are still most often excluded from this processes.

In this sense, she said, the Security Council Resolution 1325 does not stop on the role of women as victims of violence and conflict only, but also stresses their role as an actor in conflict resolution.

Following this meeting, participants called for international dissemination of the Moroccan experience as a good practice as regards the consideration of gender in the process of transitional justice. They also called for the development of cross-cutting monitoring mechanisms to ensure better institutionalization of the consideration of gender in the work of the CCDH.

It should be noted finally that the project of promoting women’s rights and their role in the transitional justice process in Morocco, which helped to highlight the role and contribution of women in the democratic process and to strengthen their participation in reconciliation and conflict resolution, is based on five areas of action, particularly the support for the institutionalization of the gender approach in the framework of the mechanism of monitoring recommendations and the support of associational activities of economic, social and cultural development integrating gender approach and the protection of women’s rights in the regions targeted by the report of the IER in a perspective of reparation, reconciliation and preservation of memory.

This project, which set as a goal the promotion of dialogue between actors at local level with a concern related to gender and women’s rights, aims to develop mediums of awareness on the issue of serious past violations of human rights in Morocco, according to the gender approach and women's rights. It also seeks to model the Moroccan experience of gender and transitional justice through a study of the process implemented by Morocco in the context of exchanging of lessons learned at the regional level.