Hommam Al Nassim 
Moroccan human rights defenders have called for strengthening the judicial and security system with judges and police officers specialized in sexual assault cases to protect vulnerable groups, especially children and women.
During a seminar held in Rabat under the slogan “Stop Silence”, the president of the Moroccan Association for the Defense of Victims’ Rights, Aicha Qalaa, stressed the importance of providing specialized investigative judges to deal with cases of sexual abuse against children.
Qalaa pointed to the great lack of adequate conditions to listen to child victims, explaining that victims need special treatment at the level of the judiciary, national security and gendarmerie, to ensure the protection of their rights.
Qalaa criticized the lenient court sentences handed down to sexual abusers, noting that these sentences encourage victims not to report crimes.
For his part, Moroccan researcher Said Nasheed stressed the need for Morocco to adopt modern models in providing specialized judicial and security frameworks, stressing that Morocco is moving in the right direction thanks to the efforts of human rights and civil society organizations concerned with protecting children and women and spreading awareness of the seriousness of these crimes.
Nasheed pointed out that reporting crimes of sexual assault has increased as a result of the spread of awareness through the media and human rights associations, which indicates a positive change in dealing with these crimes compared to the past, where families avoided reporting for fear of scandal.
The Presidency of the Public Prosecution in Morocco revealed shocking statistics on the number of sexual assaults on children, as 3,295 cases of sexual abuse were recorded in 2022, an average of 9 cases per day.
During a workshop on “Mechanisms for Caring for Child Victims of Sexual Abuse”, the King’s Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Hassan Daki, confirmed that the Public Prosecution pays special attention to these cases and works to strengthen the legal protection of children.
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