"Samehini", the longest Turkish series in the history of Moroccan television in years, received high views, but about a year ago a Moroccan association - concerned with protecting children from sexual assaults - warned that this series is one of the reasons for the increase in child rape cases in Morocco.

The association went on to demonstrate this by saying that the facts of recording these cases rose with the timing of the Turkish series being shown on the Moroccan Channel 2 screen, when the family is busy following the events of the series, while the rapist or harasser exploits this time to carry out his crime in the hallways of buildings, stairs, basements and shops according to the association, and at a time. This accusation and warning coincided with the announcement of the launch of the first evidence to support children victims of sexual abuse.

The Maghreb continues to this day to suffer from the phenomenon of child rape, and is looking for its causes and solutions.

Minor rape ... a frightening reality in Morocco One year has passed since Moroccans were shocked by the incident of trying to rape a girl inside a public transport bus in Casablanca.

In August 2017, a video clip circulated showing a group of teenagers trying to take off the clothes of a teenage girl and touch her, while she was screaming and crying.

And before Moroccans woke up from the previous story and hundreds of cases of rape of children and minors, they were busy during the past few days with a case of rape of a girl in the town of "Awlad El-Aida" near the capital, Rabat.

A 17-year-old girl named Khadija was kidnapped, detained, raped and tortured by 15 men for a period of two months, despite the existence of accounts accusing the girl of lying and establishing consensual relations with the accused.

Before the results of the official investigations came out, the organization "UNICEF" commented on the incident a few days ago, saying in A special statement: “Khadija's case is a real alert for all those involved to activate strategies, especially since Moroccan courts dealt with 5,980 cases of violence against minors in 2017”.

The statement added that "the interest of children must be placed on top of priorities, and attention to standards of care and care for victims.

Strategies should focus on the child and the family, and strengthen preventive measures.

" Unofficial figures show a dangerous reality of child rape in Morocco.

About 38% of cases of violence against children are cases of sexual and psychological violence, while figures published in 2013 confirmed that the rate of rape of children increased in recent years by 50%, and among these 70% were raped by their relatives, and human rights reports show that males are Females are more likely to be sexually assaulted.

Cases of sexual assault are distributed according to the nature of the aggressor, with relatives and neighbors at the top of the list of aggressors, followed by foreign and foreign aggressors, then parents and the frameworks of educational, charitable and social institutions.

Foreign pedophilia ... the violation of Moroccan childhood In January 2018, the Moroccan city of Fez (north-central Morocco) woke up to a "great pain".

Four girls, between the ages of 10 and 13, were sexually assaulted inside a sewing workshop by a 58-year-old French man.

The city went out angry and its people and rights activists chanted: “No to sex tourism,” “We demand the maximum punishment for Bedouin Fes,” and “This is a defect. This is a shame, our children are in danger.”

They demanded that the maximum punishment be inflicted on the aggressor.

This incident resulted in Morocco being a tourist country. A kiss for many who wish to sex tourism, the most dangerous of which remains the prostitution of minors that some foreign tourists are looking for; Their presence in Morocco is linked to the search for sex tourism and pedophilia (pedophilia), and they get what they want through the abundant money that is used to lure victims and exploit their poverty.

Such attacks are repeated in Morocco, the most prominent of which is the incident of the Spanish, Daniel Galvan, luring 11 children from the Moroccan city of Kenitra and raping them, and Moroccans were shocked again with this case when a royal pardon was issued for the man despite the existence of deterrent laws, but Moroccans did not remain silent on this decision.

Large protests forced the king to revoke the pardon of a professor of Arabic at the Spanish University of Murcia, Galvan.

It is also possible to mention here the case of the Belgian journalist Philippe Serfati, whose act shook Moroccan public opinion in April 2005 in the city of Agadir (southern Morocco). Al-Sarafati exploited dozens of underage girls and blatantly photographed them, then compiled a CD containing thousands of sexual images and published them in one of the Internet's sexual dialogue forums.

The Moroccan government is blamed by many human rights defenders and activists in general for tolerating those involved in foreigners by reducing the sentences issued against them or enabling them to flee Morocco without punishing them, and this, according to these human rights defenders, encourages them and others to come to Morocco; Because they know in advance that they can probably get away with it, and some Moroccan human rights defenders attribute the reason for the leniency of the judiciary to the rape of children by foreign pedophiles to the domination of foreign countries over Morocco, and the lack of independence of the judiciary according to them. The dire consequences of child rape It is not possible to deny the fact that sexual abuse of children is a crime and a disgraceful and morally and legally unacceptable behavior.

However, the phenomenon of rape of children by minors is more fatal in society according to some social analysts. It expresses major imbalances on the behavioral and social level of the minor rapist.

In general, Moroccan specialists place the high rate of illiteracy as a major reason for the spread of the phenomenon of child sexual abuse.

The educational level of parents is often reflected in the provision of proper family care and balanced social upbringing, immunizing children against being caught, harassed, or violated, and most of the sexually exploited minors come from poor families or troubled families.

Despite the abolition of Article 475 of the Penal Code, which permitted the marriage of a minor to her rapist, he is still blamed on Moroccan law and its provisions that are issued against perpetrators, and jurists consider them lightening and do not deter those in charge of these practices, while the perpetrator rapes a child or girl Then he is released from prison, often returning to commit a similar crime. Najia Adeeb, head of the Matqeesh Waladi Association, says: “What is really happening to minors and children in Morocco is a terrible thing, and not only street children or victims of divorce, poverty or rural immigration are subjected to rape.

There are children who belong to very well-off families, and despite their living in luxury, they They are subjected to sexual assaults, either by servants, the driver, or the cook. All children, regardless of their status, social and environmental conditions, are constantly under threat of sexual assault, even inside the school or in kindergarten, we find a danger that constantly threatens them. ” With regard to minors' rape of children, she said: “I consider that minors who rape children are pedophile enterprises. Because they possess their genes, and if they are minors, the same punishment that applies to adults should apply to them, so as long as these people can have sex, they deserve a harsh punishment. Because they will go to prison, they will be released, and they will rape children again, and so on. ” Regarding the dire consequences of rape on the child's life, psychotherapist Ahmed Al-Hamdaoui says: Rape destroys the psychological unit of the child, and introduces him into a reclusive state, and these reflections can be divided into three types of symptoms: “Some of them appear directly, and some of them appear after Six months or a year, and delayed symptoms that appear only in the long term, ”according to Al-Hamdaoui.

The specialist in psychotherapy adds: “The repercussions of rape are many, whether psychological or physical, and are represented on the physical level by the emergence of direct medical symptoms, such as injuries, tumors and cracks at the anal level, and the emergence of sexually transmitted diseases, or pregnancy, for girls.” He continues to say to "France 24": "The psychological repercussions are more severe than the physical ones, because rape leads to a disturbance of the psychological unit and the individual structure of the victim, which leads to the child's loss of psychological safety, and becomes subject to panic, fear, sleep disturbances, and a feeling of guilt." The matter is exacerbated towards severe danger and the emergence of more severe and dangerous symptoms, if the child who has been attacked is not monitored and treated, including “depression that leads to suicide, and delinquency, through drug and alcohol abuse, or resorting to criminality, for symbolic revenge; Because the rapist finds himself unable to get out of the victim’s shell, and rape, if the victim’s lack of psychological follow-up, may lead to intellectual and religious extremism. Surgical castration is not a solution The Moroccan arena was preoccupied with a media report stating that Morocco had passed the law of surgical castration for rapists, but this news, which was just "April Fools", did not cease to be a demand on the tongues of a number of associations concerned with children to punish child rapists.

The support of the associations and a number of jurists has started for the necessity to pass the enactment of the castration law, following the example of developed countries that have enacted it, such as: Poland, South Korea, Indonesia, India and Kazakhstan.

They believe that the punishment while the rapist remains in prison constitutes a great deterrent to confront the phenomenon by placing the aggressor in front of some of the problems that Suffering from the victim.

And chemical castration is “the use of drugs to reduce sexual arousal, without resorting to sterilization, or the removal of the genitals,” while opponents of this law assert that castration of a rapist is a punishment that does not respect human rights, and it is among the corporal punishments that have become generally rejected, and they demand alternative penalties. They are imprisonment penalties, which are sufficient as a deterrent, if they are severe and high in their view.

On the other hand, the Moroccan government was blamed for leniency in the issues of "child prostitution."

There are designated cities in which minors and minors engage in prostitution as their profession, Moroccan jurists call on the government to political will to cut this phenomenon and treat it from its foundations, and many jurists criticize the Moroccan criminal law for not naming the phenomena related to sexual abuse of children by their names.

It does not talk about sexual tourism or the prostitution of minors. Article 475 states that “Whoever kidnaps or deceives a minor under the age of 18 years without using violence or threat, or deceit, or attempts to do so, he shall be punished with imprisonment from one to five years and a fine of 200 to 500 dirhams. »; Morocco, which is a party to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, is obligated to uphold the rights of minors and their special protection.

The President of the Democratic Association for Women in Morocco, Saida Idrissi, says: “The penalties for rapists must be tightened on the legal side, and Europe should be emulated in providing them with psychological treatment.

Children must also be educated, and the state should provide protection for children.” The spread of the phenomenon of rape makes citizens feel that there is no law really to deter rapists.

Judges must be strict in this matter, and if the victim is a child, and he has a medical certificate from a doctor proving that he has been raped, then that is sufficient, and the matter does not need other proof.