~ UNMARRIED MOTHERS VS SOCIAL HYPOCRISY ~

[HOUDA-K]

“The pregnancies of shame, a reasoned study of young mothers and abandoned children in Morocco.”

Au-delà de toute pudeur”*** author Soumaya Naamane Guessous is back with her latest book, co-written with socio-anthropologist Chakib Guessous. In this work, both authors get past the usual hypocritical spiels and present their readers with a study reinforced by very strong testimonies and detailed analyses.




“I would give my life to spend another day with my family. I want my son and I to return to live with them. I want to be forgiven. I am only seventeen.” said Ghalia, one of the many young mothers mentioned in this book.

The theme of motherhood outside marriage is anything but easy to deal with, especially as it contradicts the nice “moral” and “religious” image we like to have of our society.

Many would like to present this phenomenon as a marginal one, only it is not: this book shows that the great majority of young women in this situation prefer to give birth and have their children adopted in secret in fear of being arrested.

Examining the economic, social, religious, moral and legal contexts in which this phenomenon is developing in Morocco, this book reveals that several behaviours considered as “moral” led many of these young women, most of them still minors, to this situation.

Among them: ignorance, which led many young girls to find themselves pregnant without understanding what happened to them; a violent conception of education allowing many cases of abuse to go unnoticed; or “h'chouma” (shame) mentality which leads families to hold young girls responsible for their pregnancies even when they were raped by family members…

This book is a little bit hampered by the lack of recent figures. However, it can be largely forgiven given that this situation only reflects the lack of official data: since 1993, a Dahir has been imposing on social workers in hospital to report to the police each time an unmarried mother would come to give birth.

Despite this, this study is rich with information, mainly gathered by associations working with young mothers such as “Solidarité Féminine” or “Insaf.”

It also presents the reader with a series of uncompromising social analyses, like in its third chapter titled “Distraught girls dreaming of love versus men looking for sex.”

In it, the authors explain why many young girls end up becoming the victims of men often more than ten years their seniors who lure them with marriage promises while considering that “contraception is women's business.”

The whole book is well structured and easy to read, well, at least for those who will have the courage to do it to the end.

*** {{Beyond any decency }}

[Anisa]

I'll have a look on amazon for it. Thanks Houda