Morocco 
Only 5000 Moroccan women lead businesses

afrol News, 7 March - The presence of women in corporate Morocco has again been focused. Lala Mariam, the sister of Morocco's King Mohammed VI, this week in Brussels praised the new government efforts to increase women's presence in Moroccan businesses. Only 0.5 percent of Morocco's women are heading a company.

A new study recently published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), demonstrated that Moroccan women still mostly are found in the family kitchen or occupy subordinate posts in companies headed by a male management. The ILO study found that women in leading position only made up 0.5 percent of Morocco's adult and active population. 

In total, the study shows, there are only 5000 women in Morocco heading a private company. The North African kingdom has a total population of 30 million people. 

The ILO study further revealed that, among the analysed companies, the majority of them had be founded in Morocco in the 1980s and 1990s - some 81 percent of the private companies actually were founded between 1980 and 2001 - meaning that, as most companies were relatively new, women still are not becoming company leaders. The few sectors with some female representation in the chief's office were within services. Far behind were the sectors of industry, agriculture and fisheries.

Meanwhile, Princess Lala Mariam in Brussels said that the government of his brother, King Mohammed VI, is indeed working on increasing women's representation in decision-making posts, especially within public administration. King Mohammed VI has become known as a strong defender of women's rights in Morocco, one of the region's most traditional countries when it comes to gender equality.

Princess Lala Mariam was participating at an international Brussels conference on how to consolidate women's role in society in Muslim and non-Muslim countries. During her speech the Princess emphasised on her brother's efforts to promote the conditions for Moroccan women, being the "basis for his democratisation project" in the kingdom.

The Princess especially mentioned that, during the King's few years in power, Morocco had achieved an increase of women members of parliament by 10 percent. Other principal achievements by King Mohammed VI had been the revision of the family law, safeguarding equal gender rights, and the legal framework for basic rights for women and children in the country.

While the new administration of Mohammed VI has contributed strongly to improve the legal framework for women in Morocco, the situation of women in rural parts of the country however remains subject to traditions hostile to women's rights. According to traditional customs, women have no rights to inheritance and in practical terms shift from being property of their fathers to become property of their husbands through marriage. In Morocco's booming urban centres, these traditions are however rapidly losing ground.

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