Association el Amane pour le Développement de la Femme (EL AMANE) in Morocco built grassroots support by organizing 161 consultative meetings in 35 cities and villages. They engaged over 1,800 women to collect recommendations of what language should be in a draft law to prevent domestic violence. Based on the statistics of civil society organizations working in support centers for women, nine out of ten women are subject to violence perpetrated by their husbands. This incredible level of abuse experienced by women is what spurred EL AMANE into action. They decided to lobby lawmakers to institute a law criminalizing domestic violence.

Introduction to EL AMANE

A group of young women in Sidi Youssef Ben Ali, a disenfranchised neighborhood in Marrakech founded EL AMANE in 2002. El Amane provides rights education and operates support centers to serve Morocco’s most vulnerable populations. These include poor women, single mothers, sex workers and child servants. El Amane educates women about their rights and how to defend them. They facilitate direct access to the legal system. And they work with other human rights organizations to inform policymakers about continuing violations of women’s rights.

Building a Network and Training Facilitators

In undertaking this effort, EL AMANE established contacts with nine non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These were NGOs working on the national level. With them they trained 94 facilitators from 39 grassroots NGOs. These facilitators wokon conducting focus groups with women coming from different socio-economic backgrounds. Then these trained facilitators organized 161 consultative meetings in 35 cities and villages which engaged 1,836 women.

Collecting Results and Drafting a Law

EL AMANE collected the results of this process to include in recommendations in a draft law. They summarized these recommendations in a long document. The document included drawings prepared by the participants in the consultative meetings. Professional painters assisted in illustrating the kinds of domestic violence the women experienced.

With the draft law in hand, EL AMANE and the partner NGOs conducted meetings with decision makers. These meetings happend along side a media campaign and town hall gatherings. The campaign aimed to inform the general public about the lobbying process and the importance of having a law preventing domestic violence. Through raising awareness, EL AMANE received significant media attention throughout the process.

Challenges and Impact

The main obstacle EL AMANE faced, was the difficulty of meeting with the governmental and parliamentarian stakeholders. But, with the continuous collective advocacy effort, it was possible to overcome this barrier. As of 2018, the Moroccan government passed a law combating violence against women. Even before the passing the law, the advocay campain made an impact in the field. For instance, they created public safe houses that host women victims of violence. However, a continuing challenge remains that those safe houses are in big cities and remain limited.