Close to the People

Most NGOs working in Morocco are based in the capital Rabat or the finance metropolis Casablanca. One important human rights organisation "Droits des Gens" deliberately based itself in Fez in order to be closer to the people it supports. Beat Stauffer was there

The city of Fes (photo: Beat Stauffer)
Grassroots commitment in the field of human rights: The Moroccan organisation "Droits des gens" is based in the city of Fes in the Fès-Boulemane region

​​The central secretariat of the organisation "Centre des Droits des Gens" (CDG) is located in an unassuming apartment building in the modern district of Fez. Its offices are modest and functional, like those of most of Morocco's approximately 7,000 NGSs. The dedication of the people who meet here to engage in voluntary work can be felt immediately.

Setting great store on its independence

"Centre Droits des Gens" is one of the biggest human rights organisations in Morocco. Founded in 1999, today it has over ninety-three branches throughout the country and around 1,900 members of which 800 are women. Unlike other organisations working in this politically delicate area, the CDG sets great store on its independence from parties and its political neutrality, says its president Jamal Chahdi.

Many NGOs in Morocco are indeed perceived either as closely tied to the government or as repositories for activists from left wing parties. The danger there is that human rights issues are often exploited for political purposes. The CDG deliberately sets out to nip such politicisation in the bud – in order to dedicate itself as fully as possible to its real work. There are enough challenges to be tackled and the organisation has set itself very ambitious goals.

The concept of inalienable human rights

Their work is focussed on human rights education and awareness, says Jamal Chahdi. The CDG promotes the concept of human rights in schools throughout the country, as well as in prisons, courts, among trade unions and at youth centres. It is work which requires great persistence and enormous patience, and work which seldom delivers results in the short term.

photo: Beat Stauffer
Setting great store on the CDG's independence from parties and its political neutrality: Jamal Chahdi, the organization's president

​​Chahdi worked as a mathematician for years but now works full time promoting human rights awareness. He is convinced that this is the only means by which results can be assured in the long term. Only when the idea of inalienable basic rights are established in people's hearts, he says, can permanent results be achieved in this area.

The education and awareness work in Moroccan schools and technical colleges is particularly important. Although the ministry responsible has developed a concept and made teaching materials available, the actual training of teachers in human rights issues is handled by the CDG.

Support from Germany

To date over 2,000 teachers have completed courses with the CDG in which they are inducted into the subject of human rights education. Both the content and the finance for these courses are largely financed by the German foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung.

The CDG carries out similar awareness work among other professional groups. Hundreds of prison warders, lawyers, youth workers as well as groups from other NGOs have taken courses to become more aware of human rights issues in the context of their particular work.

The CDG's experience of co-operating with the authorities is largely very positive, Chadhi says; it is kind of partnership made easier by the organisation's neutrality. Despite the "great strides" the authorities in Morocco have taken in human rights issues in recent years he still sees many unresolved problems and continually encounters "resistance" from certain officials.

"But we have found that with most of the authorities the will is there," Chahdi says. Over the last few years the organisation has been able to expand its field of activity.

Supporting victims of human rights abuses

Another no less important area of Centre des Droit des Gens' work is counselling people who have become victims of abuses of all kinds. Two groups of victims are targeted in particular: women whose basic rights have been abused in their workplace and young people who have got into difficult situations.

Source: Centre des Droits des Gens (CDG) 2004
Focussing on human rights education and awareness: campaign materials are being distributed by CDG staff to women workers in Fes

​​The CDG has set up centres for both groups where those affected can find a listening ear, are supported psychologically, given legal advice and accompanied when they go to court. The centre for working women is called "Al Karama", the centre for children and young people "Amane". The demand for such support centres seems to be big; over the last few years between 2,500 and 3,300 women have visited the Al Karama centre each year.

In most cases this centre almost certainly provides the only opportunity to receive even a little support and counselling. The CDG works with the international organisation OXFAM on this issue.

The CDG activists are also involved in several other fields. In recent years they have been part of the fight against corruption in local elections, part of the movement to establish of an observing body to monitor violence against women and of the campaign for the abolition of the death penalty.

Modernist, secular core values

The CDG claims to be have a good network with other NGOs; there are a total of seventeen "alliances" with fellow NGOs such as the "Moroccan alliance for modernity, democracy and human rights", which is backed by a total of 650 organisations, or the "alliance against poverty". The CDG makes no secret of its modernist, secularist core values.

"We are opposed to all forms of authoritarianism, extremism and violence and are dedicated to upholding the rule of law and democracy," Chahdi emphasises. The CDG has no problem with Islamists who accept basic constitutional, democratic principles but it rejects violent extremists categorically.

The fact that the CDG sometimes supports Islamists who have become victims of state violence is not a contradiction as far as Chahdi is concerned: human rights are indivisible, they have to be applied equally to people whose opinion we do not share.

Beat Stauffer

© Qantara.de 2009

Translated from the German by Steph Morris

Qantara.de

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