Legal Discrimination and Violence against Women Analyzed through a Feminist Lens Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework

This article analyzes the impact of discriminatory laws on violence against women (VAW) in Morocco. I utilize the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) from public policy to examine how feminist and religious coalitions compete along core beliefs, but at times may cooperate along policy core and secondary beliefs. My analysis is based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with more than 200 stakeholders across twenty Moroccan cities from 2013-2018. Respondents include women‘s and human rights associations, VAW listening centers, overnight shelters, and violence victims as well as members of the judiciary. The research boasts an inclusive sampling of perspectives from across the Moroccan political spectrum, including secularists, socialists, progressive Muslim feminists,1 and conservative Islamic associations. This amalgam of perspectives mirrors the complex fabric of Moroccan society and contributes valuable and unique insights into the sociocultural challenges to, yet potential for, cooperation and consensus-building to address VAW in Morocco.Keywords: legal discrimination, feminist, domestic violence, rape, conjugal rape, abortio