Nada

Transcript of the interview (translated from Arabic):

Most of the time there are many things I can't do. This is because of the fact that our society carries many, many taboos, whether they are taboos related to religion, let's say religiosity, or related to customs and traditions. Most of these taboos are related to women, so I often find myself unable to express my true identity, my thoughts, or myself. I often find myself wearing a kind of mask not because I can't face others but just because I want to live in peace. I used to go through big and many fight on a daily basis, I even used to get into a specific fight every hour, but with time I learned to make a social trade by expressing things and being silent about certain things and I learned to seize the appropriate opportunity to express myself only. But if I want to be my true self, I find myself fighting many wars on many fronts, even those close to me.

I started shrinking my circle of acquaintances and friends. I will not say real friends, but I will say acquaintances. I got rid of the toxic people in my life and tried to distance myself or set boundaries with people who were not intellectually compatible with me. This is the first thing I did, because it is very important that the people close to you, with whom you share your secrets, ideas, and orientations, be at least in agreement with you to a certain extent. After that, I turned to the method of negotiation, or yes, let us consider it negotiation or agreement of some kind. I no longer express everything I think, as I said earlier. I was seizing the right opportunities or times. Sometimes I would try to mix my opinions with humour or a joke and notice its effect on the recipient. Sometimes I tried to tell in the form of stories and sometimes I expressed my opinion frankly, but I also took the time for that. More importantly than what I mentioned above is that I armed myself with knowledge, true knowledge because I cannot be in a position of power and express my views and defend them vigorously without real knowledge, knowledge that is somewhat proven, knowledge that is free from impurities of ideologies and interpretations based on whims. Of course, my affiliation with my association, in which I have been working for 13 years, enabled me to be somewhat at peace, because the circle of people, the circle of acquaintances, or the circle of entanglements and networks that I may meet through the association, most of them adopt the same ideas as me. Of course, the degrees of adoption vary, but at least there are people who accept the difference and do not attack you and do not practice violence of a certain kind on you.

Since I am talking about women’s issues, the first thing that comes to my mind is the social taboos related to the individual freedoms of women, such as the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy, the myth of virginity, consensual relationships between adults outside the institution of marriage, as well as single mothers and their children who do not have any rights. And why do I think so? Well, let's start with the issue of abortion, or let's say secret abortion. Since women do not have the right to voluntarily terminate pregnancy, recently the case of Maryam, a teenage girl, a child in her school years, was raped, and a pregnancy resulted from this rape, but the child did not know, and no one took any measures or precautions at first to prevent any pregnancy from happening, so she resorted to secret abortion. What happened in your opinion? She died a martyr on the secret abortion table. Why? Because she resorted to a broker or let's say a criminal who can be described in any capacity but cannot belong to the category of health service providers because she lost her life on his table. Why? Because abortion is a criminal offence in our country, whoever commits or helps in committing it is punishable by imprisonment. How will we build peace and prosperity in this country while many women lose their lives because of secret abortions? How will we build peace and prosperity while most of them are subjected to violence inside secret abortion dens. This issue can be considered a class problem to some extent, as women from the wealthy classes may resort to traveling abroad and can benefit from the medical services provided at the highest level. They can have an abortion in safe and humane health conditions and they return without any struggle or suffering. As for the issue of consensual relationships or the criminalisation of consensual relationships outside the institution of marriage, let us assume that an adult woman and man have been arrested in a place, without going into the details of whether it was a case of flagrante delicto or not, but I will talk about the repercussions. Let us assume that the man is married, in this case he is accused with marital infidelity, and the issue of marital infidelity may drop if the wife dropped it, and this is what often happens, so the husband leaves as if nothing had happened. While the woman who is with him is arrested and her life may end because of this problem. As for the issue of hijab, the issue of religiosity, the issue of forbidding evil and enjoining what is good, the inquisition courts that exist in all of our minds, since we have no authority over our bodies and we cannot reconcile with our bodies and wear what we want, what we like, or what we prefer. Our security, our safety is at risk because of a certain dress code. This is what happened a lot and what is happening and what will happen. Previously, on the day of Ramadan, a girl was beaten and verbally abused in front of her father, in front of her father’s eyes, because she was wearing a skirt. There is also a case known as “Banat al-Sayah,” that is, girls who were also wearing skirts, who were attacked and beaten, and the beatings and violence they were subjected to were recorded in a video, and it was published. There were those who were gloating, and there were those who stood up and applauded the attackers. How will we build peace and prosperity while living these things? Neither from a religious point of view, nor from a social point of view, nor from a legal point of view, can anyone's right to choose be forfeited. With regard to religion, it is said, "Leave the people to their Creator, the Creator is the one who holds people accountable". In terms of universal rights and references, we see that every person has the right to choose and the right to practice his convictions. I honestly don't know whether conditions will improve in the future or not, but we are all hopeful, especially because in Morocco we have a good legal arsenal and a legal framework for freedoms, rights, and equality between women and men. And there are laws that have been implemented, and there are some that are still in process, so we count on the future, we count on our struggle as women, and we count on the hope that grows in us.