VZCZCXRO1154
RR RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHHM RUEHJO
DE RUEHCL #0530/01 1391702
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 191702Z MAY 06
FM AMCONSUL CASABLANCA
TO RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6674
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT 7600
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0606
RUCNCLC/CHILD LABOR COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 CASABLANCA 000530 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
LABOR FOR DOL/ILAB LILI STERN, TINA FAULKNER, AND AMY LEMAR 
 
STATE ALSO FOR DRL/IL JOE DEMARIA, DRL/BA, NEA/MAG, AND 
G/TIP 
 
LABOR ALSO FOR ILAB MCCARTER, CAMILLO, AND LAI 
 
E.O. 12958:N/A 
TAGS: ELAB EIND ETRD EAID PHUM SOCI KWMN MO
SUBJECT: MOROCCO PROPOSES NEW LAW TO RESCUE LITTLE MAIDS 
 
REFS: 05 Casablanca 00686 
 
¶1.  (U) This message is sensitive but unclassified.  Please 
protect accordingly. 
 
¶2.  (U)  Summary: On May 9, 2006, Secretary of State in 
Charge of Families, Children, and the Handicapped, Yasmina 
Baddou, announced the GOM's plan of action to end the 
practice of employing child maids in Morocco.  The problem 
of hiring underage domestics was recently highlighted in 
Human Rights Watch's report denouncing the issue.  The 
ambitious new proposal, spearheaded by Baddou's office, will 
require the active participation of four Ministries and two 
secretariats as well as non-governmental organizations and 
 
SIPDIS 
civil society as a whole, in order to succeed. 
 
¶3.  (U) The multi-layered project will prohibit the 
employment of children under 15 as domestic servants, 
designate tougher punishment for those who employ the girls, 
and prosecute those who act as intermediaries between 
families of the girls and potential employers.  The plan of 
action also details the need for improving the quality of 
education, raising the level of awareness of the dangers of 
the practice, and developing a system of monitoring all 
domestic employment.  A pilot project, funded by the King's 
National Initiative for Human Development (INDH), will kick 
off the plan in five cities nationwide, beginning with 
Casablanca.  End Summary. 
 
---------------------- 
An Integrated Approach 
---------------------- 
 
¶4.  (U) Tuesday, May 9, 2006, in a conference attended by 
government officials, prominent leaders of domestic and 
international NGOs, and the press, Secretary of State in 
Charge of Families, Children and the Handicapped, Yasmina 
Baddou, presented the GOM's new plan of action to end the 
practice of hiring girls, as young as 5 years old, to work 
as household domestics.  The new national program called 
"Inqad" (rescue in Arabic) is a long-term plan of action to 
be undertaken over the next 10 years.  The end goal of the 
plan is to eliminate the practice of hiring little girls as 
maids, withdraw the girls already in domestic service, and 
re-integrate them into society. 
 
¶5. (U) In order to create, as Baddou put it, "a Morocco 
worthy of its children" the plan of action will require 
broad participation.  Delegates from the Ministries of 
Justice, Interior, Employment, National Education, and the 
Secretariat of State in Charge of Literacy and Non-Formal 
 
SIPDIS 
Education took part in the conference and voiced 
wholehearted support for the project.  Also in attendance 
was a representative of the Bureau of National Security who 
spoke at length on his office's desire to be involved in the 
effort.  He expressed the need for all Moroccan citizens to 
come together and speak out against the practice. 
 
¶6.  (U) In addition to government entities, Baddou 
recognized the need for participation of NGOs in the 
endeavor.  The GOM is working closely with United Nations' 
Children's Fund (UNICEF), International Program on the 
Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC), and ADROS (a United 
States Department of Labor funded child rescue project), all 
of which are playing a vital role in the plan by offering 
technical assistance or expertise. 
 
--------- 
Rescue Me 
--------- 
 
¶7.  (U) The diverse strategies of the plan of action aim to 
do more that just prohibit the employment of child maids in 
Morocco.  The seven-pronged program will include: 
--new legislation already in the works to regulate all 
domestic help 
--an awareness campaign to enlighten Moroccans about the 
dangers of placing their daughters in domestic servitude 
--development of a specialized program to reintegrate the 
young girls into the national school system and improvement 
 
CASABLANCA 00000530  002 OF 002 
 
 
of the system of education overall 
--development of a method to monitor domestic labor 
--establishment of partnerships with organizations already 
withdrawing girls from domestic work 
--lending financial assistance to families of potential 
child maids in economic distress by making available micro- 
credit loans 
--creation of a unit for the "Protection of Children" pilot 
program  through the INDH in Casablanca followed by units in 
Tangier, Fez, Marrakech, and Laayoune (Western Sahara) to 
remove girls from the labor market and monitor their 
situation after the removal. 
 
----------------------- 
International Criticism 
----------------------- 
 
¶8.  (U) In its December 2005 report, Human Rights Watch 
(HRW) strongly criticized Morocco's child labor practices 
claiming that "Morocco has one of the highest child labor 
rates in the Middle East and Africa."  The report documented 
cases of girls, as young as five, working 100 or more hours 
a week for less than a dollar a day.  The GOM itself admits 
that there is a problem and in 2005 released a report saying 
that over 600,000 children under 15 are employed illegally 
in Morocco, more than 66,000 of them as child domestics. 
Secretary Baddou, while acknowledging the problem, took 
 
SIPDIS 
issue with the report saying that "HRW's figures and 
comparisons are exaggerated and lack credibility" and that 
they sought no input on the subject from the GOM before 
publishing their report. 
 
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Comment 
------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Morocco's new plan of action is an ambitious 
attempt to force Moroccan society to examine the all too 
common practice of considering poverty-stricken children as 
part of the workforce and not the educational system.  The 
practice of sending young girls to work as maids is as much 
a cultural issue as an economic one.  Baddou's plan 
addresses these problems and more, and by bringing in 
numerous branches of the government and social sector, she 
may be assuring wider involvement.  Some NGO and civic 
leaders are skeptical that the plan will make a difference 
and cite the fact that minimum age of employment in Morocco 
is already set at 15 and what Morocco needs to do is merely 
enforce its current laws. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Since coming into office in 2004 Baddou has been 
an outspoken and well respected advocate of children's 
rights.  She was one of the forces behind last summer's 
media campaign to bring the issue into public consciousness, 
joining NGO leaders' efforts to return abused maids to their 
families after withdrawing them from their abusive employers 
homes and marching in rallies to show support of the issue. 
While there is a healthy bit of skepticism, in the greater 
community and even among mission officers, there is also a 
feeling that if Baddou can insure collaboration on the 
project it may stand a good chance given other reforms 
recently seen in Morocco. 
 
Greene