Morocco - Zineb Chtit’s case, an example of a necessary protection of "little maids"

Since August 2009, Morocco has been deeply moved by the case of Zineb Chtit. This 11 year-old girl worked as a little maid in Oudja. She was subjected to much violent mistreatment by the house owner. The sentence has now been passed: the woman is sentenced to 3.5 years’ imprisonment and fined 100’000 dirham. When the case became public, human rights associations denounced the gap in the law regarding domestic work of young girls.
For eight years, Tdh delegation in Morocco has been working at the roots of the problem and for these little maids’ protection. According to Jean-Christophe Gérard, Tdh delegate in Morocco: “In villages around Agadir – a region from which numbers of girls are exported – we have dissuaded dozens of families from sending their daughters to work in town and convinced intermediaries to stop supporting this trafficking. To find alternatives is not easy, but we try to increase parents’ awareness of their children’s future and of the risks they run when they are alone and without protection”.