"A septuagenarian burned her body to protest against injustice. The authorities refuse to treat us on an equal footing with men. They want to appropriate our land without compensating us and they are ordering us to leave our homes as soon as possible. We can no longer remain silent about such injustice," exclaims Assmae Harich, secretary general of the "Forum Oudayas des femmes" association, an NGO born from the desire of women to defend their rights.

Indeed, determined to make the voices of these women heard, this young activist stops at nothing. She multiplies media appearances and video recordings that she projects on "YouTube" to raise awareness of these women's cause. "We need to believe that this Morocco has changed. The new Constitution has granted women the place they deserve in society. But its content has not yet been adopted by those managing public affairs. The authorities have not yet changed their mentality.



There is still a great disparity between men and women," indicates Assmae Harich. This disparity is precisely what these women are denouncing, as they call for fair and just treatment of their cases and for compensation equal to that of their male counterparts. To achieve this objective, the Soulaliyate are calling in particular for the implementation of the Ministry of the Interior's agenda of 25 October 2010. "We are determined to continue our fight until we obtain our rights. Moreover, we call on the components of civil society to mobilise to support our cause," adds one of the Soulaliyate. We have, on several occasions, tried to contact the wilaya officials to explain these cases to us, but we were told that the wali was the only one authorised to speak on this matter. He remained unreachable.

Let us recall that the history of these "ethnic" lands dates back to the dahir of 27 April 1919, decreed to govern collective lands (aradi al joumou). This dahir had made these lands inalienable, unseizable, and imprescriptible thanks to effective legal protection through a land status. At the same time, an attempt at the "traditionalisation" of these communities was made through a "Sharing Regulation" setting rules for access to land uniformly and equally. The approach of this institutional creation was based on an analysis system that confuses norms and habits. The practices of the peasants of the bled jmaâ were in reality very diverse and were characterised by the coexistence of several registers of legitimacy.

The objective of this procedure was to keep the peasantry in the countryside to limit rural exodus and the dangers of urbanisation. Thus, tens of millions of Moroccan peasants have been able to live for ages off their collective lands, admittedly in meteorological and infrastructural conditions below the vital minimum, but they were still able to ensure their independence thanks to these lands which were endowed with a specific status. As for the women, they had been excluded from this process from the start. Admittedly, they did the majority of the work, since they cultivated the land with the men in parallel with the other tasks they had to ensure, notably the education of children and household chores, but tradition meant that it was the men who harvested the fruit of their labour. Indeed, whether they were ethnic women or not, they have never had the right to exploit these lands until today, and this despite the progress the Kingdom is experiencing in terms of human rights.

Collective lands or Bled Jmaa are indeed on the verge of disappearing. Indeed, a clear trend appeared in Morocco at the beginning of the 1990s in favour of the privatisation of these lands, due to the depletion of useful land in cities.

Placed under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, these lands were sold to several Moroccan investors, notably the real estate group Addoha and Al Omrane. As for the peasants, they received compensation in the form of plots of land and sums of money. But women were once again excluded from this operation. However, the Soulaliyate do not intend to give up. Coming from different tribes, notably EL Haddada, Oualed Oujih, Ouled Hnicha, Ouled Sbita, Ouled Moussa, Sakinia, Kasbah de Mehdia, and Ifrane, they intend to lead their fight to the end.