The Exploitation of Women in Northern Africa: The Case of Morocco

In this article, I propose to carry out, first, an analysis of the effects the Family Code, or Al-mudawwana, has on social structure, specifically with regards to the role of women in the Moroccan labour context. The transposition of French law to the Moroccan territory until its independence in 1956, and its definitive adoption for the acceptance of international treaties raises the inescapable question about where the separation between Islamic law and constitutional law lies. On one hand, the Islamic law regulates private life, and on the other hand constitutional law governs public life, resulting in a bipolar legal system that does not operate without major problems when discerning which of them should be integrated into the framework of the other and vice versa. This is taken with reference to the situation of the women, their right to work, their treatment under the Al-mudawwana and their valuation in domestic work. Second, we will analyse how the participation of Moroccan women in the labour market is characterised - being fragmented between formal and informal positions - while at the same time being divided in a dual-mode in primary and secondary segments in the market. Finally, we will describe situations of exploitation that women workers face. These arise from the phenomena of economic globalisation, which has had an unprecedented influence on Morocco due to the economic reforms undertaken in the country with the creation of Free Trade Zones, or Free Zones, to bring Morocco into a strategic position economically.