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Tangier, Morocco
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ONE MOTHER'S STORY
© A. Grunfeld
Pregnancy out of wedlock carries a heavy social stigma in Morocco, where single mothers and their babies are often shunned. In Tangiers, Mothers at Risk sponsors scholarships for mothers to participate in a professional training program with the goal of securing a job to sustain themselves and their babies.
Fatima, 23, is one of these mothers. She has a healthy baby girl named Jamila, who was born against all odds. Her mother dotes on her, and earns enough at her new-found work to support the two of them. But Jamila and Fatima’s future looked quite different only a few months ago.
Fatima comes from a rural family of modest means. She attended school until she was in her teens, but financial pressures made her leave her village in northwestern Morocco, Tiflit, to look for work. She found a low-paying job at a factory in Tangiers, 300 kilometers away from home. It was during that time that Fatima became pregnant. With the father not assuming any responsibility, abortion illegal, and pregnancy out of wedlock stigmatized and penalized by law, Fatima was out of options. She kept her pregnancy a secret from her family and had no support networks to rely on. By the time she was eight and-a-half months pregnant, she was alone, jobless, with no prospects of income, and with no place to live. Fatima feared delivering alone at the hospital where it was not unlikely that staff would notify the police of her status, and she saw no alternative to abandoning her baby after birth.
It was at this juncture that she found her way to 100% Oumahat, Mothers at Risk’s local partner and the only shelter of its kind in the north of Morocco. It offers emergency accommodation for women like Fatima, as well as a comprehensive support program to encourage a safe and healthy pregnancy, a positive mother-child relationship and the mothers’ self-sufficiency.
Fatima spent the days before her delivery caring for the other mothers’ babies and participating in the family-like environment of the shelter. And when she delivered and held her daughter for the first time, she decided beyond any doubt to keep her and to raise her by herself despite all the odds. As soon as Fatima had recovered from her delivery, she started participating in a professional training program, sponsored by Mothers at Risk. The certificate Fatima graduated with opens up employment opportunities for her in the formal economy. She has already secured a full-time job and has moved with little Jamila to their own rented apartment, the home for their small family from now on.
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