Women Sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco: A Long Journey towards Integration and Agency

As part of the Monthly Meetings on Migratory Experiences, the event "Women Sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco: A Long Journey towards Integration and Agency" will take place on the afternoon of November 14, at 15:00 (GMT+1) in person. Admission is free.

Venue

Iscte - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

Aud. TBA

Fatima Rhorchi

Communication “Women Sub-Saharan Migrants in Morocco: A Long Journey towards Integration and Agency”

ABSTRACT

Morocco’s policy toward migrants is more generous than most, issuing work permits and refusing to evict undocumented refugees. ‘Women should be treated differently; they should be protected from rape and human trafficking. We should give them shelters and healthcare support,’ says Moha Ennaji, president of the South-North Centre for Intercultural Dialogue and Migration Studies. Hence, the new policy basically says that ‘we don’t deport them, we don’t beat them up … we tolerate them, [but] they can beg and fight for a job.’ This paper is a report of a survey conducted on the socioeconomic situation of women sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco (Fez region as a case study) who made it in their struggle to change their social situation. As a methodology of research, I have relied on a face to face interview of 20 women with varying age groups, nationalities. The majority of these women share their own experience on how they converted from simple illegal migrants to businesswomen and chief executives in the Hospitality industry. Relying on these migrants’ narratives, the paper demonstrates how successful entrepreneurial projects among women migrants created gendered spaces for agency in Morocco

Fatima Rhorchi is a habilitated Associate Professor. She received her PhD from from Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez. She retired from Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, in December 2021 where she teaches Cultural/ Gender Studies and Translation. She is a member of Royal Studies Network (Winchester University) and editing board member of Monarchy and Money research group (Oxford University). Her research interests include Women’s and Gender History and Monarchy. She is currently carrying out a multidisciplinary work on the historiography of female sovereigns in the kingdom of Morocco from medieval period until early modern era with Brepols Publishers (Belgium) and teaching Immas and Mourchidates General English at al-Qarawiyyin University (Fez, Morocco).