Virtual Magazine of Morocco on the Web
Morocco Week in Review 
February 10, 2007

IPC and Handicap International Collaborate on Project in Morocco.

Through collaboration with Handicap International (HI) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the Royal Moroccan Federation Sport for Disabled (RMFSD) will implement a project in 2007 in Morocco to develop and promote sport activities for persons with a disability. The RMFSD is officially recognized as the National Paralympic Committee of Morocco by the IPC.

The goals are to facilitate social integration and personal development through participation in sport. The project is composed of several activities, including trainings for sport instructors and support for organizations for persons with a disability to develop physical and sport activities. In addition, the project will promote sport events for persons with a disability to inform the public and media as well as encourage dialogue and exchange among Moroccan organizations. Additional project partners include the Moulay Rachid Sports Institute, the Moroccan State Secretary in charge of the Family, Solidarity and Social Action and the Moroccan Association of Sports Press.

Charity & Sport, a Dutch organization that aims to bring the worlds of sport and charity closer together and which became a funding partner of the IPC in 2005, together with the Dutch National Co-operation and Development Organization, have committed Euro 13,000 to support the project. For more information on the project, please contact the RMFSD at h.federation@caramail.com. For more information on Handicap International please visit their website www.handicap-international.org.
http://www.paralympic.org/release/Main_Sections_Menu/News/Current_Affairs/2007_02_09_a.html
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Law targets violence against women in Morocco.
08/02/2007  By Imane Belhaj

A new bill to combat violence against women aims to provide them with protection and safe harbour. In addition to spousal violence, the bill targets sexual harassment and other forms of economic and social violence. The Secretariat of State for the Family, Childhood and the Handicapped has sent a draft bill on combating violence against women to various Moroccan women’s associations requesting suggestions and observations. According to the secretariat, the bill is considered "an important step in the continuous establishment of the legal framework for protecting women’s humanitarian rights and strengthening this protection". It primarily aims to provide protection and safe harbour for women victims of violence.

"Daily practice revealed the existence of several holes and problems connected to the legal texts or the social reality, and it’s necessary to counteract them and to put forth solutions and answers. Further, reality showed new forms of violence linked to economic, social and cultural circumstances … But the law remained limited in combating this phenomenon," Bouchra Abdou, a member of the national office of the Democratic League for Women’s Rights, said. In addition to spousal violence, the bill targets sexual harassment and other forms of economic and social violence, and recognizes the role undertaken by listening centres and associations.

The new law further stipulates that women employees or workers who are victims of violence shall benefit, within the bounds of their workplaces, from reduced work hours or temporary cessation of work when necessitated by their psychological state or state of health. The women's rights and benefits are guaranteed under the Labour Law. Further, women victims of violence are given priority in changing work location when doing so is necessary to protect them, on the condition that the need for these exigencies is verified by a report from specialised medical authorities.

Abdou says the new law must set down a clear concept of violence directed against women that encompasses all of its forms -- including psychological violence, such as "all verbal attack, shouting, mockery or using censure or social ostracism, detention, or intimidation, also encompassing verbal threat or any exploitation for the purpose of controlling another person".

In a memo filed with the secretariat and the interior and justice ministries, the Democratic League for Women’s Rights called for the law to extend to "all places". The league also deemed it necessary to add a clause related to providing training and professional qualification opportunities to battered women, along with creating social assistance institutions to benefit women victims of violence at health centres and the prosecution office of the judiciary police.

The anticipated law for combating violence against women includes four sections with 26 texts, identifying violence and its forms and the places where it is perpetrated and clarifying the penitentiary procedures for violence.
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Morocco exporters eye U.S. market.
By Staff.  Home Textiles Today -- 2/9/2007 Casablanca, Morocco

Now that many Moroccan companies have established themselves as home textiles exporters to Europe and the Middle East, some upholstery fabric manufacturers based in the northwestern African nation are turning their sights to the largely uncharted U.S. market. The one-year-old USAID-funded Morocco New Business Opportunities Program (NBO) was established to help bridge the gap. “Our objective is to encourage trade between the U.S. and Morocco,” said Mike Blakeley, director of enterprise assistance for the NBO, which is managed by his Washington, D.C.-based company, Nathan Associates Inc. “And at the same time, we are here to facilitate U.S. companies interested in sourcing products out of Morocco,” he said.

NBO’s efforts are already starting to pay off, albeit in small numbers. U.S. Customs reported a 46.2% increase of the value of U.S. imports of Moroccan textile products from 2005, when the value was $64.7 million, to 2006 when it rose to $94.6 million. A breakdown of these numbers is not available. But while they may be heavily skewed by imports of garments/apparel textiles, they do include home textiles, which are dominated by upholstery fabrics.

For home textiles, industry veteran Louis Ragy – formerly of Trade Am – is NBO’s senior international market expert, helping Moroccan suppliers with everything from forming links to U.S. buyers, to advising on fashion trends. “These companies offer world-class manufacturing at very competitive pricing for the U.S. market,” Ragy said. “They offer European quality and styling at very competitive pricing. We are bridging the gap by taking our know-how and pairing it with their know-how to bring the product to the American consumer.” http://www.hometextilestoday.com/article/CA6415458.html
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Unemployment rate down to 9.7% in 2006, HCP.
Rabat, Feb. 8

The unemployment rate has appreciably fallen in 2006 to stand at 9.7% against 11.1% in 2005, High Commissioner for Planning revealed in its information sheet on the situation of the job market in Morocco. This rate reached 15.5% in cities, 18.4% in 2005, while in rural areas it attained 3.7% in 2006, 0.1 point more than 2005, it said. On the active population over 15, the HCP said it stood in 2006 at 10.99 millions (plus 1.5%), and the activity rate remained almost stable to move down only 0.2% and stand at 51.3%. A combined 522,000 remunerated job positions were created in both cities (301k) and countries (221k), HCP revealed adding that unpaid jobs fell to 222,000, including 191,000 in rural areas. http://www.map.ma/eng/sections/box5/unemployment_rate_do/view
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Iowa couple sips tea in Sahara: Iowans make a return trip to visit dunes, mosques, palaces and tombs.
By RAYMOND AND MARGARET HARDEN.  SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER  February 4, 2007

We spent three days in Tangier, Morocco, in 2000 and were so impressed with the country that we wanted to make a return visit and see more of this interesting country. On Dec. 28, we left on a return trip to Morocco with Overseas Adventure Travel and 14 other Americans. The trip was a 1,000-mile circle route including the major cities of Casablanca, Rabat, Fez and Marrakesh. A walking tour among the Roman ruins of Volubilis was included, as well as visits to the country's famous mosques, royal palaces and some of the tombs of Morocco's deceased kings. (Note: Morocco was the nation where Brad Pitt's scenes were depicted in the Oscar-nominated movie "Babel.")

One of the highlights of the trip was visiting the homes of eight Moroccan families, sharing a meal with them or just having a glass of mint tea and a piece of bread. We had dinner with a wealthy building contractor's family, a retired University of Fez law professor and the "headman" of a small village. A family of sheep-herding nomads who lived in the High Atlas Mountains served us hot mint tea when we visited them. In the Sahara Desert, we drank tea with a nomadic family that herded camels. They later served us freshly baked bread that was cooked in a clay oven, fueled by small twigs and camel dung. The part of the trip we enjoyed the most was camping for three nights in the Sahara Desert south of the small town of Rissani near large sand dunes. Here the paved road ended and became tire tracks of four-wheeled vehicles that went in the desert in many directions. Several times it seemed a SUV was stuck in the deep sand, but the driver used the four-wheel drive to keep going.

The second morning in the tent camp, we got up at dawn and climbed to the top of a large dune and watched the sun rise over the mountains. After breakfast, an hour was spent riding camels across the sand dunes. Near the village of Asni, in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, we took a mule ride through groves of olive trees. The mule walked on the ridges of irrigation ditches, in streams and on narrow trails on the steep mountainside. The sure-footed mules plodded along as if they had power steering with little direction from the guide or reins. Our group toured several farms on the coastal plain and in the desert oasis.

The desert crops were irrigated by groundwater from a community-owned pump. The water passed through a series of canals and locks to control the direction of flow. Wheat, alfalfa and vegetables were grown in postage-stamp-sized fields. There were also groves of olive trees, citrus fruits, pomegranates and almonds. A few tractors were seen on the larger farms on the coastal plain, but in the mountains the donkey was the beast of burden.

They were also used for pulling plows and carts, and were ridden side-saddle. Occasionally a farm would have a few cows but the main livestock consisted of sheep, goats and chickens. The people of Morocco were very friendly, and all of the families we visited showed our group gracious hospitality. The warm days and cool nights made it a good place to visit in January.
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070204/LIFE/702040306/1039/LIFE
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Fez, Morocco: Wild Honey.  
By ALICE FEIRING     New York Times / Published: February 4, 2007

The car-free, donkey-full ancient medina in the Moroccan city of Fez is confusing, stark and exotic. It’s the kind of place where you find men squatting on stone streets tending bunches of mint, peeling wild artichokes, peddling bottles of fresh rose water and buckets of preserved lemons. They may even be balancing bouquets of goats’ legs — hair and all — bundled up for sale as if they were daffodils. Like street signs, price tags are optional.

But honey? Unlike most items for sale in Fez, honey has both a price tag and signage. This isn’t just any honey, mind you. This is mythic, rare honey from feral bees, the really wild stuff. To find this wild honey paradise, enter the medina through Ain Zliten Square. Hang a right onto the Tala Kebira (the main drag leading into the market). Walk about four brisk minutes. Make another right just before Coin Berbère, an antiques store. There, through the arch, will be the sun-bleached courtyard of Fondouk Kaat Smen with three purveyors of honey.

To my taste, the best merchant is baby-faced Nafis Hicham, who sells oil, butter and honey as his family has for three generations. In his blue-and-white Fezian-tiled stall, Mr. Hicham measures out his wares with ancient brass weights. If you don’t speak Arabic, he can accommodate you in French, and will happily escort you to the back of the store, which is packed with blue plastic urns of 17 varieties of honey. On a recent visit, I tried to persuade him to dole out tastes of his three wild varieties. He showed photos of his wild honey sources in the Atlas Mountains. Forget prissy little domesticated bee boxes. One of the photos depicted a hive that looked like a Cotswold thatched cottage and seemed almost as large.

Mr. Hicham explained that very few people wear protective gear, as many hunters have developed immunity and can withstand 20 or 30 stings while harvesting. He added that wild honey is a miracle cure for just about anything. Carob honey helps digestion. Caper honey is good for colds and flu. He knows about the tamer honeys as well: Lavender? Good for stress. Thyme? Good for low blood pressure. Who knew?

When he finally let me taste, I was crazy about the carob, which was gritty and intensely caramel-like. The cedar was earthy, the caper delicate and floral. Healthful or not, drizzled on plump figs, they were all delicious and at $10 a kilo a real global bargain. You can find Nafis Hicham at Tala Kebira, Fondouk Kaat Smen 81; (212) 35634-269.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/travel/04foraging.html?ref=travel
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