BackgroundThe European Union contracted Morocco to regulate migration from so-called “transit migrants” from Morocco to Europe via the European Neighbourhood Policy. Yet, international organisations signal that human, asylum and refugee rights are not upheld in Morocco and that many sub-Saharan migrants suffer from ill-health and violence. Hence, our study aimed at 1) investigating the nature of violence that sub-Saharan migrants experience around and in Morocco, 2) assessing which determinants they perceive as decisive and 3) formulating prevention recommendations.MethodsApplying Community-Based Participatory Research, we trained twelve sub-Saharan migrants as Community Researchers to conduct in-depth interviews with peers, using Respondent Driven Sampling. We used Nvivo 8 to analyse the data. We interpreted results with Community Researchers and the Community Advisory Board and commonly formulated prevention recommendations.ResultsAmong the 154 (60 F-94 M) sub-Saharan migrants interviewed, 90% reported cases of multiple victimizations, 45% of which was sexual, predominantly gang rape. Seventy-nine respondents were personally victimized, 41 were forced to witness how relatives or co-migrants were victimized and 18 others knew of peer victimisation. Severe long lasting ill-health consequences were reported while sub-Saharan victims are not granted access to the official health care system. Perpetrators were mostly Moroccan or Algerian officials and sub-Saharan gang leaders who function as unofficial yet rigorous migration professionals at migration ‘hubs’. They seem to proceed in impunity. Respondents link risk factors mainly to their undocumented and unprotected status and suggest that migrant communities set-up awareness raising campaigns on risks while legal and policy changes enforcing human rights, legal protection and human treatment of migrants along with severe punishment of perpetrators are politically lobbied for.ConclusionSub-Saharan migrants are at high risk of sexual victimization and subsequent ill-health in and around Morocco. Comprehensive cross-border and multi-level prevention actions are urgently called for. Given the European Neighbourhood Policy, we deem it paramount that the European Union politically cares for these migrants’ lives and health, takes up its responsibility, drastically changes migration regulation into one that upholds human rights beyond survival and enforces all authorities involved to restore migrants’ lives worthy to be lived again.
University students (N = 301) in Estonia, Morocco, and the United States read scenarios about various scheduled appointments and indicated the time at which a person arriving would be inappropriately early or inappropriately late. Participants also completed measures of time orientation, collectivism, and personality. Definitions of "on time" varied substantially across countries and across individuals but interacted in a regular fashion with specific features of appointments (e.g., the purpose of an appointment or the status of persons involved). Flexible definitions of "on time" were associated with youth, collectivist values, and a fatalistic orientation toward the present. Finally, definitions of "on time" were largely independent of personality traits. Taken as a whole, personal standards of punctuality appear to be best understood within a situational and sociocultural-rather than dispositional-framework.
This paper deals with three major questions: (1) What are the sexual norms defined by the sacred texts (Koran and Sunna)? (2) What are the sexual practices currently observed among Moslems? (3) To which extent are current sexual practices of Moslems dissociated from Islamic sexual norms? Sexual standards in Islam are paradoxical: on the one hand, they allow and actually are an enticement to the exercise of sexuality but, on the other hand, they discriminate between male and female sexuality, between marital and pre- or extramarital sexuality, and between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Men are given more rights with regard to the expression of their sexuality; women are forbidden to have extramarital sex (with their slaves) and both genders to have homosexual relationships. The combination of these paradoxical standards with modernisation leads to the current back and forth swing of sexual practices between repression and openness. Partial modernisation leads to greater sexual tolerance. But restrictive sexual standards have gathered strength and have become idealised as a result of the current radicalisation of Islam. This swing of the pendulum between repression and openness is illustrated by phenomena such as public harassment, premarital sexuality, female pleasure, prostitution, and homosexuality. Currently, Islam is not any more the only reference which provides guidance concerning sexual practices but secularisation of sexual laws is still politically unthinkable today. So the only solution is to achieve reform in the name of Islam, through the reinterpretation of repressive holy texts.
Arab scholarship of sexuality is currently emerging against many obstacles. This article provides a suggestive introduction to the current state of knowledge in the area. After briefly sketching an archetype of Arab sexuality, especially its peculiar form of phallocracy, new sexual trends are reviewed, some of which adapt current practices to Shari'a law (e.g., visitation marriages), while others break with it altogether (e.g., prostitution). The article then discusses three distinctive areas of public and policy concerns in the region, namely, honor killings, impotence and Viagra use, and sex-education programs that are precipitated by concerns over HIV/AIDS. The essay concludes with an assessment of some of the main challenges still facing research into the topic in the Arab Islamic world.
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