With the gender inequality index of Morocco being .45 as of 2019, the physical, psychological, and economic violence placed upon women is affirmed. Men’s negative view on women develops in public and familial spaces, in which an association between womanhood and disgust is formed. In this way, attacking women through verbal or physical means is, according to Violence against women in public spaces: the case of Morocco, “a way for men to prove publicly their virility and dominance over women and space”. In public settings, women’s movement is repressed when facing sexual, psychological, verbal, and physical assault outside the house; and in an institutional sense, women are more likely to experience identity checks by the police. This type of oppression allows the normalization of stripping women’s rights. Women feel this cruelty all their life — when asking a single mom in college living in Beni-Mellal about when she first realized the restriction of her movement in public spaces, especially at night, she responded “Always”.

Despite the seeming omnipresence of police in Morocco, as seen through the police checkpoints held all over the country by traffic police, only 8/100 women who experience domestic violence report the incidence to the police. This issue of not filing complaints is twofold: societal shame of being divorced and the fear of being blamed by police for the incident. Oftentimes the female survivor is the one blamed for cases of violence. In some cases, the woman is ignored or placed under a travel ban, while in others she is considered hysterical and can have her job put in jeopardy. Furthermore, due to the #MeToo movement, the vilification of women for coming forward has infiltrated the subconscious of Moroccan minds. In fact, only 1/10 women survivors globally come forward to the police about their abuse, but many withdraw their reports because of poor police response. Allegations, by use of politics or power, determine how respected a reported incident will be.

Although culture and religion stand as chief tenets upholding Moroccan society, efforts in those spheres advocating for women’s rights have proven to be only slightly beneficial in the arena of gender-based violence. In Article 51 of Morocco’s Family Code, the Qur’anic teachings preach the importance for both spouses to share a number of obligations, including cohabitation, family rights, and fidelity. Due to Morocco’s patriarchal society, the religion of Islam is often manipulated by men to their advantage and pleasure – relinquishing women their rights. Instead of interpreting the text as a sign of mutual respect and collaboration in the private sphere, men tend to believe that, under pretense from the religion, that women must have sexual intercourse with the man, no matter what consent or lack of is involved. Although parts of the Qur’an proclaim the between women and men, as well as the of men who oppress or harass women, Muslim scholars today believe that women who attempt to deny sexual intercourse with their husband are .