conditions and better resourced public In July, parliament passed Article 28 of the hospitals. 36.21 Civil Status Bill, which states that the By the end of the year, Morocco had fully gender assigned to “hermaphrodite” vaccinated about 67% of the country’s newborns can be changed later in life. While population against Covid-19. billed as an advancement in LGBTI rights in Morocco, the amendment was criticized by WOMEN’S AND GIRLS’ RIGHTS trans rights organizations who said they had A national pandemic fund was created in not been consulted and that many find the 2020 to compensate those forced to leave term “hermaphrodite” offensive. work. However, Moroccan NGO the Feminist Furthermore, the law continues to assign Action Union found that women were less intersex people to either male or female able than men to benefit from the scheme as genders, does not extend to allowing they are less likely to be in regular work transgender people to transition and focuses Implementation of the 2018 Law 103-13 for on the appearance of genitals without the prevention of violence against women reference to chromosomes or hormones. remained weak. Contrary to claims by the There remained no mention of transgender Public Prosecution Office that domestic people in law. violence cases decreased by 10% compared In February, gender non-conforming artist to previous years, the Feminist Action Union Abdelatif Nhaila was released after serving a recorded monthly increases in domestic four-month prison sentence imposed in violence cases from January to April in 2020. Police arrested him after he visited a almost every city in Morocco. police station to report death threats and In May, the Minister of Justice announced homophobic harassment he had received as that the number of child marriages had part of a widespread social media smear reduced since 2019. UN Women disputed campaign begun in April 2020, and this, saying the figures do not provide subsequently prosecuted him for “violating information on the forms of customary the state of health emergency” and “insulting marriage involving children, nor do they an official”. consider the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on mobility and access to public REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS administrations. Article 19 of the Family Code The authorities arrested and arbitrarily sets the marriage age at 18, but Articles 20 detained migrants and asylum seekers during and 21 give judges in charge of family issues the year, deporting some to their country of the right to authorize requests for child origin and expelling others to southern areas marriages. of Morocco and the Western Sahara. In areas In January, former police officer Wahiba close to border crossings or on migratory Kharchich relocated to the USA after routes to Europe, including Nador, Oujda and suffering defamation when media company Laayoune, the authorities raided the housing ChoufTV published a video alleging to show and encampments of sub-Saharan nationals, her having an extra-marital affair in sometimes burning their belongings or December 2020. She had filed a complaint in forcibly evicting them from their makeshift 2016 about sexual harassment by her boss shelters, according to the Moroccan Aziz Boumehdi, head of El Jadida police unit, Association for Human Rights. which was never followed up. In addition to refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa or Middle Eastern and LGBTI PEOPLE’S RIGHTS North African countries, most of the 8,000 or Article 489 of the Penal Code continued to more individuals who crossed from Morocco criminalize consensual same-sex sexual into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in late May relations. (see Spain entry) were Moroccans and included at least 2,000 unaccompanied Amnesty International Report 2021/22 260