Morocco.. Investigation into suspected rape of 30 children inside a social center
The judicial police in Tangiers (northern Morocco) has opened an investigation to reveal the truth of allegations that 30 children in a social center were raped.
A few days ago, a number of children inmates at the center revealed that they had been raped by the center's staff, in an interview with a radio program.
According to what was reported by "Al-Massa Newspaper", the security authorities, under the direction of the Public Prosecution, heard in official minutes the testimonies of a number of victims.
The victims accused two foreign nationals, who were running the center, of exposing them to rape and indecent assault.
The Moroccan Penal Code punishes the rape of a minor (e) with the crime of “indecent assault” stipulated in Chapter 484, which imposes a prison sentence of two to five years on each “whosoever indecently indecently assaulted or attempted indecent assault on a minor under 18 years of age, incapacitated, or a disabled person or a person known to have weak mental faculties, whether male or female.
The law also stipulates that acts of harassment or attempted harassment of every child shall be punished with a prison sentence of between two and five years. The penalty is doubled if the harassment is combined with violence, and the offender is sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
And on Saturday, the Northern Morocco Human Rights Forum announced, through its Facebook account, that it "started writing to the concerned authorities, keeping pace with the results of the judicial investigation, and preparing a comprehensive report on this serious human rights tragedy."
The Forum affirmed, "A human tragedy has occurred, in which children between the ages of 6 and 18 have been victimized, since the opening of the center in 2004, in a systematic manner."
He called on the Moroccan state to “assume its full responsibility under the legal supervision and subordination of the National Cooperation Institution and the executive authority to the shelters for adolescents and children, calling on the national public opinion to accompany this file, and to press for the proper application of the law, and not to impunity.”
In December 2021, the Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research in Morocco revealed that it had monitored cases of harassment among primary school classes, after a field study that included 36,000 male and female students.
The council indicated, in a report on "Students' Gains and Quality Challenges", that 9% of sixth-year primary students, and 17% of third-year preparatory students, revealed that they were victims of sexual harassment by their colleagues.
He added: "8% and 13% of the students were victims of sexual harassment by their teachers, compared to 7% and 11% who declared that they had been sexually harassed by the educational administration."
The council indicated that harassment in schools takes different forms: moral, physical, digital, through the practice of psychological and physical violence and the weakening of the harasser through threats or even temptations.
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