Moroccan Parliament Considers Draft Law for Efficient Integration of People with Special Needs

Casablanca- Bassima Hakkaoui, the Minister of Solidarity, Women, Family and Social Development, has recently announced that the Moroccan government is working on a draft law that would allow citizens with special needs access to 7% of public facilities.

During a session held last Tuesday by the House of Representatives, the Minister said: “The government is currently working on a draft law that would further advance the rights of people with physical disabilities in Morocco.”

Ms. Hakkaoui added that “this government seeks to avoid remaking the same mistakes concerning the integration of citizens with physical difficulties, mainly by implementing new policies that cover all related public and civil sectors.”

According to the Minister, the government has allocated MAD 16 billion ($2 billion) to guarantee that children with physical disabilities would receive adequate education and improve their integration in the educational realm.

Based on a report released by the Moroccan Economic and Social Council in 2012, the Moroccan job market had lost around MAD 9.2 billion mainly because of not integrating people with physical disabilities.

There are apparently no recent, official statistics that show the exact number of people with physical disabilities in Morocco. However, an unofficial census that was carried out in 2005 recorded 1.35 million people with physical disabilities in the kingdom, which constituted at that time 5.12% of the overall population.

The 2011 Moroccan constitution recognized the rights of citizens with physical disabilities along with the urgency of efficiently integrating them in all public sectors. The constitution has also prohibited [is this correct, discrimination is a criminal offense? I think probably not. So I suggest using the word prohibited] any sort of discrimination towards people with disabilities in all public and private domains.

Mrs. Hakkaoui also seized the opportunity to highlight the difficulties encountered by homeless people in Morocco, especially the elderly. The Minister stated, “It is really unworthy of Morocco that an elderly citizen still can’t find a shelter in this cold winter.”

The Minister thus called on Moroccan citizens to help social institutions provide shelter to homeless citizens. She even stated, “If need be, these elderly homeless people should be forced to shelter in social centers, especially in winter.”