In an address at an interactive meeting organized by the Council with non-governmental organizations and researchers on sexual violence against children, Bouayach called on the government to seize the opportunity of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Kingdom’s accession to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (June 21 next), “to make urgent amendments to ensure the effectiveness of the children’s rights to protection against all forms of violence, in accordance with the provisions of Article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially sexual violence as provided for in Article 34 of the Convention.”
On the normative level, she added that the current situation also requires hastening the completion of the ratification process of the Convention of Lanzarote of the Council of Europe on sexual violence against children, considered a normative framework to adapt to sexual violence, consolidate legal protection, prevent violence and strengthen international cooperation in countering sexual assault against children of transnational character, in addition to completing the process of ratification of the Third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which gives children the opportunity to submit their complaints to the UN Committee after the exhaustion of national remedies.
She renewed, in this regard, the proposal to reform the model that governs the punitive policy and to proceed to a reclassification of rape and assault, in accordance with international standards, to consider them as sexual violence, that is to say, crimes aimed at attacking and damaging the victim’s physical integrity, which must be punished severely regardless of the circumstances, and not simply considered as a violation of the family system as is the case today.”
