After the CNDH, it is Transparency Maroc’s turn to react to the rise in denunciations of sexual harassment and blackmail, coming from several students enrolled in Moroccan schools and universities. In a statement, the institution said it is following with interest all information on the sex scandals that have affected some teachers.
While strongly condemning “these heinous acts which undermine the dignity and lead to serious damage to the mental and physical safety of students”, Transparency Maroc explains that sexual extortion is a misuse of power for private ends. “It is, therefore, one of the most intolerable forms of corruption. Beyond the university space, these practices are found in many other sectors where gender is a bargaining chip”.
Transparency Maroc “welcomes the rapid initiation of legal proceedings and the administrative decisions taken by the Department of Higher Education, certain universities and grandes écoles to counter and prevent these acts”. To give more weight to the actions carried out by the justice, it asks to introduce, in the draft of the Penal Code, “sexual extortion as a form of corruption and abuse of power”. It urges the public authorities to give administrations and establishments in the public and private sectors more resources capable of helping them to cope with this phenomenon.
Transparency Maroc calls on the public authorities to conduct studies that could explain the causes and propose measures to prevent them. While showing its indignation at these acts, the association believes that combating them should not be used as a pretext for a violation of the rights of the accused.
Based on its convictions, however, the association considers that the extreme seriousness of the acts should in no way constitute a pretext for overriding “the fundamental principles guaranteeing a fair trial including those of the presumption of innocence and the secrecy of the investigation”.
