Leader’s Words About Women Jolt Morocco

The New York Times
Leader’s Words About Women Jolt Morocco
By AIDA ALAMIJUNE 18, 2014

Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane of Morocco told Parliament this week that women would be better off at home than in the workplace, setting off alarm in a country that has seen slow but steady gains in women’s rights.

“Today, there is a problem with women’s role in modern society,” he said Tuesday in Rabat, the Moroccan capital, when asked about the government’s position on women’s rights. “Women don’t even find time to get married, to be mothers or to educate their children. Why don’t we embrace this sacred status that God gave to women?”

The reaction on social networks and in the Moroccan news media was swift and heated. Columnists said the prime minister should solve the country’s economic problems and not offend women, and political rivals said his comments revealed the true agenda of his conservative Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party.

“This is a threat — an insult to all Moroccan women and all the fights waged for many years,” Khadija Rouissi, a member of Parliament with the opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “We are all aware of the dangers posed to women’s rights, and we must mobilize against this.”

MORE at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/world/middleeast/prime-minister-told-parliament-women-better-off-at-home-than-in-workplace.html?_r=0