#MeToo wave in Morocco over 'sex for grades' scandal

France24 – AFP, 23 January 2022 

Nadia, a university student and a victim of sexual blackmail, attends a conference
on the subject of sexual aggression, in the western Moroccan city of Casablanca,
on January 20, 2022 FADEL SENNA AFP

Rabat (AFP) – Female Moroccan university students have broken their silence about professors demanding sexual favours in return for good grades, a scandal that has shaken the higher eduction system. 

Testimonies have flooded social media in the style of the #MeToo movement, encouraged by activists in the conservative North African nation where victims of sexual violence often keep quiet. 

"I was expelled from university a year ago under the pretext that I had cheated on an exam," said 24-year-old student Nadia, who declined to give her full name. 

"The truth is that I had just refused to submit to sexual blackmail from one of my professors." 

The Hassan I University in Settat, near Casablanca, where she was eventually re-admitted, is now embroiled in a scandal involving five professors. 

One was sentenced to a two-year prison term this month for demanding sexual favours for good grades, in the first such verdict, while four others are due to face court Monday. 

"My case was not an isolated one," said Nadia. "Other girls suffered similar things but no one wanted to listen to us." 

In recent years, several similar cases were reported by local media, but failed to elicit official action. 

But then a social media campaign shifted the conversation, raising awareness of the magnitude of the problem. 

'Wave of testimonies'

The turning point came when screen shots were published online, said to be of messages in which professors demanded sexual favours from female students. 

Members of a women's rights association, give a press conference about the
subject of sexual aggression against women in universities FADEL SENNA AFP

"I had not considered making a complaint, but after the scandal broke, I filed a civil suit," Nadia said. 

"My move is also a way of encouraging other victims to denounce these acts." 

One association that helped bring some of the scandals to light was "7achak" -- an expression in local dialect used to excuse oneself before broaching a taboo topic. 

The movement launched an Instagram page calling on women victims of harassment to share their stories. 

"As soon as the appeal was launched, we received a wave of testimonies," the association's founder Sarah Benmoussa told AFP. "Those accompanied with evidence were published." 

More accusations against university lecturers began to emerge online. 

"I am speaking to you to stop the sexual harassment and the rotten and unacceptable acts of a monster disguised as an instructor," wrote a former student of the National School of Business and Management in Oujda. 

Other victims also shared their experiences involving that professor, resulting in his suspension. 

Some officials at the business school, deemed "complicit", were also dismissed, the higher education ministry said last month. 

'Zero tolerance'

In Tangiers, an instructor at a school of translation was convicted and sentenced to jail in early January over sexual harassment, lawyer Aicha Guellaa told AFP. 

According to her, "nearly 70 complaints" were also filed at the Abdelmalek Essaadi University of Tetouan, but have so far failed to provoke a response from the university administration. 

The reports of sexual harassment in academia sparked an uproar among activists, online and in the local media across Morocco. 

They prompted Higher Education Minister Abdelatif Miraoui to pledge "zero tolerance" for sexual harassment. 

As the number of testimonies grew, several universities launched toll-free hotlines and set up teams to follow up on cases of sexual violence. 

"It's crucial to support the victims and to help them gain access to the judicial system," said human rights defender Karima Nadir of the "Outlaws" group. 

In 2018, after years of fierce debate, a law entered into force, imposing for the first time prison sentences for "harassment, assault, sexual exploitation or abuse". 

"Laws exist," Nadir said, "but few benefit from them."

Tutu's ashes buried in Cape Town cathedral

Yahoo – AFP, 2 January 2022 

A requiem mass was held Saturday for South Africa's anti-apartheid
icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu (AFP/Nic BOTHMA)

South Africa's spiritual father Archbishop Desmond Tutu, hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, was laid to rest at dawn on Sunday in the Cape Town cathedral where he once preached against the brutal white-minority regime. 

Nobel Peace Prize winner Tutu died a week ago, aged 90, after a life spent fighting injustice. 

His ashes were "interred at St. George's Cathedral in a private family service early today", an Anglican Church statement said. 

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba placed his remains under an inscribed memorial stone before the high altar. 

He urged South Africans to "use this opportunity to turn a new page. 

"Let us commit ourselves... to the radical, the revolutionary change that he advocated,” Makgoba said. 

"Let us live as simply as he lived, exemplified by his pine coffin with rope handles." 

Some 20 members of Tutu's family, led by his widow "Mama Leah" were present. 

Famed for his modesty, Tutu had left instructions for a simple, no-frills funeral with a cheap coffin, followed by an eco-friendly flameless cremation. 

Modest requiem for a titan: South Africa bids farewell to Desmond
Tutu (AFP/Saawmiet MOOS)

Family, friends, clergy and politicians had attended a requiem mass on Saturday with President Cyril Ramaphosa leading the tributes. 

"Our departed father was a crusader in the struggle for freedom, for justice, for equality and for peace, not just in South Africa... but around the world as well," said Ramaphosa. 

"While our beloved (Nelson Mandela) was the father of our democracy, Archbishop Tutu was the spiritual father of our new nation", lauding him as "our moral compass and national conscience". 

Under apartheid, the white-minority government cemented its grip imposing laws based on the notion of race and racial segregation, and the police ruthlessly hunted down opponents, killing or jailing them. 

With Mandela and other leaders in prison for decades, Tutu in the 1970s became the emblem of the anti-apartheid struggle. 

He campaigned relentlessly abroad, administering public lashings to the Western world for failing to slap sanctions on the apartheid regime. 

After apartheid was dismantled and South Africa ushered in the first free elections in 1994, Tutu chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which exposed the horrors of the past in grim detail. 

He would later admonish the ruling African National Congress for corruption and leadership incompetence. 

Tutu's moral firmness and passion went hand-in-hand with self-deprecatory humour and a famously cackling laugh.