Morocco: New Manual Promotes Human Rights Awareness

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Making Human Rights Real: New Manual Promotes Human Rights Awareness Among
Moroccan Women

September 8, 2004 (Rabat) - The Global Rights Morocco field office, in
collaboration with 31 local women's rights groups and development
associations, has published the second revised version of its manual,
"Making Human Rights Real: A Human Rights Education Program for Women in
Morocco."

Written in Arabic and 420 pages in length, the new version of the Manual
is the result of a four year grassroots level campaign by Global Rights
and local Moroccan organizations to promote human rights and to enhance
legal awareness among illiterate women in Morocco.

"This Manual is a very helpful tool for our work with women in our
community," said Hasna Allali, President of Association Amal pour la femme
et le développement in El Hajeb. "The diverse topics addressed in program
include introductory sessions on women's human rights concepts and the
legal sources of human rights, as well as specific subjects such as
women's rights in the family, the right to freedom from violence, and the
right to work, education, property, health, and to participation in public
life."

This new version of the Manual is the result of four years of
collaboration between Global Rights and its local partners to promote
women's rights education and advocacy. Designed for program facilitators,
Making Human Rights Real contains an Introduction to human rights
education, a Practical Facilitating Guide, 74 two-hour sessions on a wide
diversity of women's human rights themes for program facilitators to hold
with groups of women participants, and appendices with additional
resources.

Each of the 74 program sessions contains a Lesson Plan accompanied by a
legal reference sheet with relevant international human rights
conventions, Moroccan laws, religious texts, and local customary law.

"This program is unique because it doesn't just provide women legal
information about their human rights - it also develops their personal to
defend their rights and to mobilize collectively for change," explained
Halima Oulami, President of Association el Aman in Marrakech.

The Manual targets human rights education with illiterate women, but was
designed to be flexible and adaptable for implementation with other groups
of women. However, using participatory methodologies rather than written
materials, the essential characteristic of the program is that none of the
sessions require reading or writing skills on the part of the
participants.

Following publication of the first version of the Manual in February 2002,
Global Rights held an intensive series of training workshops titled,
"Facilitating for Women's Human Rights Education," for 90 facilitators
from six regions in Morocco in spring 2002. Once trained, the
facilitators implemented pilot human rights education programs for
thousands of women across the country.

Global Rights and their local partners then evaluated and rewrote the
Manual based on the field experiences and contributions from the women
participants. The updated manual was enhanced to a total of 74 sessions
with new subjects such as the right to development, the impact of
terrorism on women's human rights, and the rights of physically challenged
women. The new Manual also has an Arabic-Berber human rights dictionary,
and updated legal reference materials that include the reforms made to the
Moroccan Personal Status Laws in February 2004.

"On behalf of Global Rights, I would like to thank our partners in this
Initiative, who were instrumental in the elaboration and updating of this
important manual," said Stephanie Willman Bordat, Morocco Country Director
for Global Rights. "Our partners come from a diversity of regions across
the country, including the northwest (Tanger, Tetouan, Larache, Martil,
Chefchaouen), East (Oujda, Al Hoceima, Taza), Tansift al Haouz (Marrakech,
Ait Ourir), South (Zagora, Agadir, Essaouira), Middle Atlas (El Hajeb,
Fes, Ain Leuh), Rabat and Casablanca. Thanks to their hard work, more
Moroccan women will be empowered to protect their human rights."

In the coming weeks, Global Rights and its partners will distribute more
than 3,000 copies of the Manual in book form and on CD-Rom for local NGOs
to use in human rights education programs for women. The Manual also is
being used in Algeria and Tunisia in the Global Rights Maghreb Initiative
to produce country-specific manuals for these two countries.

The Manual will be available in PDF format on the Global Rights website at
http://www.globalrights.org. To obtain a hard copy of the Manual, please
phone the Morocco field office of Global Rights at 212.37.66.04.10 or send
an e-mail to [email protected].

GLOBAL RIGHTS is a human rights advocacy group that partners with local
activists to challenge injustice and amplify new voices within the global
discourse. With offices in countries around the world, we help local
activists create just societies through proven strategies for effecting
change.