Introduction
Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco and its largest port. Before the 1912 French occupation of Morocco, Casablanca had been a town of 20,000. In the 1910s, the city started attracting migrants because of French colonial policies and the city’s subsequent growing importance for Morocco’s economy. French urban policies in Casablanca, the construction of its new port and its designation as a commercial and administrative centre attracted both European and rural migrants to the city, which transformed its demographic composition. By 1936, it was a city of over 250,000 inhabitants; by 1951, it was a metropolis of 700,000 people. Part of its growth was a result of European immigration; as the capital of French-occupied Morocco, the city attracted European administrators, businessmen, and settlers. The larger share of immigrants, however, came from the Moroccan countryside. Both Europeans and Jews left Morocco shortly after it achieved independence in 1956. The city, however, continued to grow and now has a population of more than 3.5 million. 1
Casablanca is an interesting case study of regulated prostitution. Like other French-colonized cities, it instituted regulated prostitution. In addition, however, for about three decades, from 1922 to 1953, state-regulated prostitution was carried out in a walled-off brothel district called Bousbir, which is located a few kilometres to the southeast of the city. In this “urbanist and hygienic utopia” 2 regular police and medical inspections were used to ostensibly protect women from exploitation and their clients from venereal diseases. French administrators in Hanoi, Tunis, and Beirut saw it as a model for emulation, in part or in full. Medical doctors and abolitionists in the metropole debated the pros and cons of regulation based on what they heard about Bousbir. 3
For more recent periods, this survey relies on sociological studies which were generally based on interviews with a few dozen sex workers. Sara Carmen Benito’s research in this regard has been criticized for a lack of historical depth, and historian Frédéric Abécassis has raised valid questions about the representativeness of such a sample in a city whose prostitute population is estimated to be 2,000 women. 4 These critiques are valid, but nonetheless such sociological research does provide us with a preliminary understanding of some of the challenges that Casablanca’s prostitutes face in the new legal and social realities of independent Morocco.
The Protectorate Period
Prostitution existed in historical Islamic societies, but mostly as a social rather than a legal category. In Islamic law, zina, or non-marital sex, was defined as sexual relations between a man and a woman who was neither his wife nor his slave; prostitution thus constituted an offense within this category.
5
Little is known, however, about social attitudes regarding prostitution in precolonial Morocco. During the French protectorate (1912–56), prostitution was regulated and prostitutes were divided into two categories: registered and non-registered
Immediately after the 1912 occupation of Morocco, prostitutes began to be supervised by military doctors and the gendarmerie in order to protect French troops from venereal diseases. At the time of the French occupation, Casablanca’s rather modest brothel district consisted of three or four brothels located on a central street that had been leased from a Frenchman named Prosper Ferrieu who held several diplomatic positions in the local French consulate early in the twentieth century. The local pronunciation of his Christian name resulted in the small quarter being referred to as Bousbir.
In 1914, civil administration replaced the military one and as a consequence prostitutes were placed under police supervision, but their residential choices were not yet restricted. In 1921, the colonial administration decided to relocate the Bousbir brothels a few kilometres away from the city in a dedicated enclosed quarter, and all indigenous prostitutes were required to move there in a transfer that was completed in 1923. The municipality rented the 24,000m2 quarter to a private concessionaire for an annual fee of 43,200 francs, while he received from ten to twenty times that amount from the prostitutes alone, not counting the profits made from café and shop owners. 6
Bousbir and French Colonial Casablanca
Historians of French colonialism in Morocco have presented Casablanca as a social laboratory, particularly with regards to the regulation of urban space. The creation of walled-off quarters was part of an urban experiment involving policies and practices that would have been impossible to implement or even be inconceivable in the metropole.
7
French urban policy was based on the calculated ideas of Morocco’s governor, Hubert Lyautey; his approach was premised on notions about modernization and development on the one hand and the preservation of Morocco’s perceived cultural character on the other. Accordingly, particularly in the early years of the protectorate, the French administration promoted the accelerated development of the commercial,
Segregating respectability from vice, colonizer and colonized was part of this design, as was dividing the wealthy from the poor. The modernization of urban space was marked by anxiety and tension regarding the city’s rationality on the one hand and the irrationality of desire and the constant threat of venereal diseases on the other. In this specific colonial context, such anxieties were focused on rural immigrants, who were now much less supervised than they had been in their former social environment, and they were considered to be more vulnerable to the temptations of city life. 9
Bousbir as a Rational Utopian Urban Design
In its design, Bousbir embodied an orientalist fantasy, mimicking and adapting oriental architectural styles. Its public spaces included a cinema, a hamam, a few shops, cafés, dance halls, gardens, and decorative fountains. Buses to the district left the city centre every ten minutes, and a bicycle shed, taxi station, and parking lot were constructed. The only gate leading to Bousbir was closed for three hours each night, from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., and it was constantly guarded by both the police and the military. 10 A dispensary was located in front of the police station, an example of the conflation of police intervention and medical inspections. 11
In 1935, Bousbir had 179 houses of prostitution with 497 rooms, as well as forty-eight boutiques. Rooms were rented for 5 francs per day. The rooms had electricity, but no running water. Most houses had one floor with two or three rooms, and a small kitchen and patio. Some prostitutes lived alone, while others worked for a brothel keeper in exchange for room and board. 12 Official designs notwithstanding, visitors to Bousbir described fly-infected garbage cans, women emptying filthy buckets onto the streets, a lack of running water, and dirty bathrooms. 13
According to Jean Mathieu and P.H. Maury, frequent police action against clandestines who worked outside of Bousbir resulted in medical examinations. Women found to be healthy were warned and released. A third arrest and conviction resulted in women being forcibly taken to Bousbir, which, as we see below, they were not free to leave. Women found to be infected with venereal diseases were sent to the hospital, and once released were transferred directly to Bousbir. Brothel keepers used the dispensaries as recruitment grounds, or as Mathieu and Maury termed it, as a “slave market”. 15
Demographics
We know quite a bit about the social profile of Casablanca’s registered prostitutes in the protectorate period. Taking it as a model for French colonial regulation, administrators and medical doctors throughout this period mapped the demographic distribution of the city’s prostitutes, keeping track of their weekly routines and health. Most of these reports were biased in that they focused on Bousbir and ignored non-registered prostitutes. Bousbir’s filles soumises obviously represented only part of the city’s prostitute community, however; estimates varied widely from half to as little as 10 per cent of the number of those practicing at least occasional prostitution in Casablanca at the time. 16
The main social groups in Bousbir were Muslims, Jews, and Europeans. The first two were native to Morocco, and were thus classified as indigène. The third were part of a European migratory community that came into being in North Africa in the mid-nineteenth century. As in the entire region, Casablanca’s European population increased rapidly, growing from a few hundred early in the century to about 35,000 in 1925 and 133,000 in 1952. Most of these migrants were French, with smaller Italian and Spanish communities, which again is representative of the general pattern. 17
Between 1920 and 1950 there were from 400 to 900 registered prostitutes in Bousbir at any given moment. In 1935, for example, in a city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, Bousbir housed 466 women, of which 391 were Muslim, 30 were Jewish, and 35 were European, as well as 20 “entertainers” under police control. 20 In 1951, Mathieu and Maury claimed that there were 98 European prostitutes in Casablanca and 657 Moroccan. Most of the European prostitutes, however, were located in the old city, while only a handful worked in Bousbir. Jewish prostitutes usually lived alone, although some worked at Jewish or Muslim brothels in Bousbir. They were better educated than their Muslim counterparts, and charged higher fees. Mathieu and Maury also estimated that during the decade preceding their study the number of clandestine prostitutes in Casablanca had been from 3,000 to 5,000, with as many as 30,000 women engaged in at least occasional prostitution. 21
Alongside Bousbir, Casablanca also had maisons de rendezvous, the residents of which were also supervised and medically examined. The 1935 report estimated that many more dancers and singers supplemented their income with clandestine prostitution and noted that countless indigenous lower-class women occasionally practised prostitution as well. 22
At the time of the 1951 report, the average age of prostitutes in Bousbir was 21, with few over 26 and none over 35. By that age, some became madams,
Most residents (64 per cent) had not been engaged in any other kind of employment before they started working in Bousbir. Of those who were employed, about half were domestic servants, and the rest were skilled or unskilled labourers. They resorted to clandestine prostitution to supplement their meagre incomes, taking advantage of the anonymity of the city and distance from family supervision until the police took them to Bousbir. Some were driven into prostitution after having been orphaned or widowed and subsequently had to support their children or siblings. 24
In terms of marital status, 78 per cent of the prostitutes interviewed by Mathieu and Maury had been married at an average age of 14 (with a range of 10 to 16 years of age). About a third terminated their marriages on their own initiative due to physical or verbal abuse at the hands of a husband or in-law; the rest were divorced, abandoned, or widowed. Some had their first sexual encounters outside of marriage, and this often occurred in the form of rape; some of the women mentioned that American soldiers were their first sexual partners (following the Anglo-American landings in North Africa in November of 1942). 25
Professional and Personal Life
Mathieu and Maury identified three categories of relationships between prostitutes and brothel keepers: 47.6 per cent of women were completely dependent on their madams, who provided them with room and board but no share in profits; 23.8 per cent shared their profits with the brothel keeper; and 28.6 per cent were independent but had to pay high rent.
26
The more well-to-do hired a maid, sometimes a former prostitute, who cooked, cleaned, went shopping,
As for the clientele, many of prostitutes’ clients were sailors and soldiers who came to the city on shore leave. Because the city was an administrative centre for the French occupying army, some of the clients were French, Moroccan, and Senegalese soldiers. In 1935, Bousbir had from 1,000 to 1,500 daily visitors. These were Senegalese and French soldiers on even days and Moroccan soldiers on odd days; such segregation, common in many colonial contexts, was intended to maintain racial hierarchies and the distinction between colonizer and colonized. 28
Women were not allowed to leave Bousbir without a permit, which was usually issued once or twice a week; the authorities feared that the prostitutes might get infected by casual or commercial sexual encounters in their free time. Indeed, many prostitutes supplemented their income with unsupervised sexual encounters in Casablanca’s hotels while on leave. About 10 per cent never left Bousbir, and 4 per cent left only on Muslim holidays. The rest used their leave for leisure activities such as going to a hamam, watching movies, going to the municipal swimming pool, going to holy shrines, and going on picnics. 29 On workdays, they spent the mornings at cafés, public baths, beauty salons, and laundry facilities. Most of them consumed alcohol, cannabis, and cigarettes. 30 Mathieu and Maury took note of the women’s tattoos; some of them were decorative, and some were intended to conjure the evil eye or “enchain” a lover. Most were in French. Some prostitutes had scars which were the result of wounds they inflicted on themselves during their attempts to remove old tattoos. 31
The pronatalism of Moroccan society made abortions rare and prostitutes’ children were either put up for adoption or raised by the women’s families. Pregnancies among prostitutes, however, were rare, due to the effects of venereal diseases. 32 Although children were not allowed to reside in Bousbir after the age of 4, visitors noted that they encountered older ones. In some cases, prostitutes maintained close contact with their families of origin, mainly their sisters. Some left Bousbir after a few years and started families. 33
Health
During the period of the protectorate, the main health concerns were syphilis and gonorrhoea, the rates of which among non-registered prostitutes were notably high. Clandestines were arrested in police raids, medically examined, and then sent either to Bousbir or to a secure hospital. Casablanca’s Health Inspector, Eugène Lépinay, insisted that the strict medical inspections in the quarter had managed to completely eradicate syphilis in the 1930s, but other medical professionals disagreed. Sailors moved unrestricted to and from the port and regularly infected the women in Bousbir. At any rate, Casablanca itself could not remain a sterile environment, particularly as most clients preferred the company of clandestines over the brief and less romantic experience offered in Bousbir’s brothels. 35
To protect the health of French troops stationed in Morocco, however, the municipality operated prophylactic dispensaries. Bousbir had two separate clinics: one for Europeans, Jews, and Senegalese, and the other for Moroccan Muslims. 36 Mathieu and Murray claimed that most women did little in the way of hygiene aside from washing their genitals with water and only rarely used soap, and they noted that prostitutes used the quarter’s dispensary very rarely. 37
Independent Morocco
Several significant developments affected prostitution in Casablanca following Morocco’s independence. First, regulation was abolished and prostitution was
Second, the demographic composition of Moroccan society changed with the dwindling of the European and Jewish communities after independence.
40
This made the classification of prostitutes along national/ethnic lines no longer relevant. Third, due to those demographic changes as well as changes in the education system following independence, social norms were undergoing a transformation, particularly in the cities. Benito points in particular to double sexual standards in Moroccan society by which—like in other times and places—women are expected to remain virgins until marriage while men’s virility is measured by their sexual conquests.
41
Although somewhat stereotypical, her observation does point to a shift that occurred in the transformation from colonial rule to independence. The ideal of premarital chastity, particularly for women, has been maintained while the average marriage age has been on the rise, making that ideal more difficult to achieve. Non-vaginal sex and hymen reconstruction surgery are some of the individual strategies employed to resolve this tension. Since abortion is illegal in Morocco, women also resort to back-alley abortions. Socially, one recent outcome has been the limited acceptance of premarital sex. Another outcome has been an increase in occasional prostitution among young women, as detailed below.
42
Demographics
In the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, the demography of Casablanca’s prostitutes continued to be affected by rural immigration to the city, particularly from the High Atlas. Rural women were employed mainly as maids by middle class families. Geographic, economic, and ethnic distances stripped these women of the protection of their families and communities, exposing them to abuse. Most lived in urban slums and constituted the lower classes of Morocco’s prostitution sector. 43
As noted above, although most Moroccan women are illiterate, the average age of first marriage has been steadily increasing along with women’s education levels. The result is a growing group of educated women who live alone or with a female roommate. Because of the limited job opportunities available and the lower salaries paid to women, some of them substitute dependence on parents with dependence on a lover, sometimes involving occasional prostitution. As in other societies, Moroccan women who exchange sex for monetary compensation do not necessarily consider themselves to be prostitutes. The women whom Meriam Cheikh interviewed in 2007 and 2008 did not consider the exchange of money for sex with a regular partner to be a form of prostitution but rather part of a normative heterosexual relationship. 44
Several studies were conducted in the last few decades about Casablanca’s prostitutes. Between 1985 and 1998, Fatima Zahra Azruwil interviewed sixty prostitutes.
45
Benito interviewed seventy-three prostitutes in Casablanca in the early 2000s, of whom only 40 per cent were born in the city while the rest had migrated there from the countryside (22 per cent of them with their families).
46
Cheikh interviewed dozens of single women involved in fulltime or occasional prostitution in Casablanca and Tangiers. Those women worked
The family histories collected by Azruwil and Benito suggest that early marriage, early divorce, and pregnancy outside of wedlock were common factors that led women to take up prostitution. Social isolation and limited labour opportunities left these women with few options to support themselves. Azruwil traced a history of domestic violence in the women’s families and marriages. The stigma attached to a woman losing her virginity outside of marriage, whether voluntary or as a result of rape, left women with no family protection, and some of them fled their homes due to fears of violence and even death at the hands of family members. According to Azruwil, the lack of communal and legal protection for divorced women often drove women to destitution; 60 per cent of the women in her sample were divorced, with two thirds of them supporting at least one child. 48
The women Benito interviewed started working as prostitutes from 16 to 20 years of age and normally retired by the age of 40 to 44; 53 per cent were divorced, 40 per cent were single, and 5.5 per cent were married. More than half (55 per cent) had children; many of them left their children alone when they went to work, while others relied on the help of family members, neighbours, or colleagues. Those who had children old enough to go to school sent them to school, but 10 per cent of school-age children lived on the streets. 49
Both Azruwil and Benito point to women’s illiteracy as a contributing factor to their entry into prostitution. According to Azruwil, illiteracy rates among women in Morocco are as high as 75 per cent, leaving them with few alternative employment opportunities if they are widowed or divorced. 50 Some two thirds of the women Benito interviewed were illiterate. Almost half had previously worked in other trades, mostly as domestic workers. 51
In present-day Morocco, most working women have low-income jobs and work in the services sector, at factories (mainly food and textile factories), and as domestic workers. Many of Azruwil’s interviewees stated that sexual
As one of the only unskilled jobs available, domestic work exposes women to sexual and economic exploitation. Masima Moujoud and Dolorès Pourette point out that there is a continuity between the employment of slaves in Moroccan households until as late as the 1930s and the sexual exploitation of maids in present-day Morocco. In the slave system, female slaves were both domestic servants and concubines, and this occurred within the scope of an oppressive set of rules which also included basic legal protections. Such a safety net is not available for maids today, some of whom end up in prostitution. 53
The social profile of the women described in Cheikh’s research is distinctly different. From 1960 to 1999 the average age of first marriage in Morocco has risen from 17 to 27 for women and from 24 to 31 for men, and this has been accompanied by an increase in the numbers of single mothers. 54 As a result, more women are able to live alone, sometimes cohabiting with other young women. Away from their families, they can host male friends and clients, but they have to depend on men for their rent and clothing and in some cases the support of other family members. 55
Homosexuality is illegal in Morocco and socially unacceptable. Journalists, and later academicians, brought the existence of male prostitution in present-day Morocco to the attention of the public. Many male prostitutes resorted to prostitution after being rejected by their families because of their sexual orientation. Others do not necessarily define themselves as gay, and like the women in Cheikh’s study, they consider prostitution to be a normative way of making a living via sexual relations with both men and women.
56
Professional and Personal Life
The fact that prostitution is illegal affects every aspect of prostitutes’ social interactions. Azruwil’s interviewees said that they had to bribe or endure sexual harassment by members of the police force in order to avoid imprisonment. Periodical police raids are a constant threat. Benito’s interviewees also reported being subjected to arbitrary arrests and demands for bribes by the police. 57
Prostitutes no longer live in licensed houses and they rarely have a pimp or madam. They are in constant contact with taxi drivers who sometimes spend entire nights driving them around the city and often help them find clients for a fee; women who refuse to pay a taxi driver run the risk of being reported to the police. 58 Aside from taxi drivers, prostitutes rarely use male pimps, and those that did told Azruwil that they had bad experiences with them. Sometimes older prostitutes find clients for younger ones. Prostitutes also sometimes pay younger men to protect them from violent clients, but those men do not interfere with their choice of clients nor do they manage them or receive a fixed percentage of their earnings but only payment for services rendered. 59 Prostitutes also reported that they are under the constant threat of violence, theft, and rape. Since prostitution is illegal, they cannot take legal recourse against their assailants. 60
Most of the prostitutes’ clients are Moroccan and the rest are usually tourists from the Gulf area or Europe. The latter can offer, besides monetary compensation or gifts, the possibility of travelling to their countries. 61 Some workers supplement their income with street-based prostitution; they find clients on the street and go with them to a hotel, which receives half of the money they get. 62 Others find their clients in night clubs. 63 Most of the women Benito interviewed met their clients at the client’s home, others used hotels, and others had sexual relations in the client’s car or on the street. 3 per cent of the interviewees were homeless; others reported that they had gone through periods of homelessness when they could not pay their rent. 64
High-class prostitutes work at high-end hotels, as they are not subject to police raids. Lower-class hotels also receive a certain percentage of prostitutes’ fees and in that way some operate as de facto brothels. Other prostitutes use rented apartments. The cost of a prostitute’s services vary according to her looks, level of education, and age, and women in their late twenties are thought to be too old to charge high rates. Protected sex is paid less than unprotected sex. 67 Lower-class prostitutes often live in the outskirts of the city. Many of them are rural immigrants who wear traditional garb, supplementing their low legal income with prostitution. 68
In the early 2000s, prostitutes in Casablanca were paid 30 to 250 dirhams (roughly 3 to 25 dollars) per encounter. They work four to six days a week and have between two and ten clients per day. The highest rates are charged by women who are 24 to 29 years old because they are already experienced but still young. Women can thus make an average of 3,000 to 4,000 dirhams per month, much more than the 1,000 dirhams made by domestic or other unskilled workers. A fifth of the women Benito interviewed made less than 2,500 dirham per month, which hardly sufficed for their daily needs and the needs of their dependent children or parents. Only 4 per cent made 10,000 dirham per month. 69
Health
Since the 1980s, the main health concern has been hiv. Moroccan ngos disseminate information about hiv to the Moroccan public, since this problem
Most of the women Benito interviewed rarely consulted medical doctors; about 60 per cent consulted a doctor when they felt sick, and 40 per cent just bought a painkiller from a pharmacist when they felt unwell. Likewise they rarely are examined by a gynaecologist, and they only do so when they get pregnant or suffer from an acute medical problem. In any case, most cannot afford to consult a doctor. Socially isolated and legally marginalized, these women cannot rely on family support when they become ill or ask them to look after their children. 73 Most (85 per cent) of the women Benito interviewed smoked at least one packet of cigarettes per day, 25 per cent regularly smoked hashish, and 88 per cent drank alcohol, a quarter of them on a daily basis; 20 per cent abused other drugs on a daily basis. 74
The women Benito interviewed reported that they mainly use contraceptives, and they stated that condoms deter clients. Some of the Moroccan sex workers Benito interviewed told her that they preferred non-vaginal sex because it kept their hymens intact and hence did not threaten their marital prospects. 75 Many of them reported that they use birth control pills in atypical ways in order to avoid menstrual bleeding; they take the pill continuously for three to six months, or even permanently, so that they won’t get their periods and hence can work four weeks per month. As a result, and due to the lack of regular medical supervision, they suffer from complications such as blood circulation disorders. Moreover, 20 per cent of the women interviewed reported that they had undergone an illegal abortion.
Most of the women interviewed by Benito reported that they do not know much about the symptoms of venereal diseases. As a result, they usually are treated quite late. Some believe, for example, that hiv is a European disease, or a homosexual disease, and thus they think it does not pose a threat to them. Those diagnosed with hiv told Benito that they did not tell anyone about it. 76
Prostitution in Casablanca underwent several major transformations in the years discussed in this chapter. The first was legal, as it went from strict regulation to criminalization. Regulation affected the geography of prostitution as prostitutes were required to live in the enclosed quarter of Bousbir, or they worked independently and illegally around the city. Bousbir lost its function as a red-light district in the early 1950s, and in the years following independence, criminalization forced prostitutes to work underground in and around Casablanca. It also affected prostitutes’ interactions with clients, the police, and others.
A second significant change is demographic. In the protectorate period, most prostitutes were Muslims and the rest were European and Jewish. Both Jews and European settlers left Morocco en masse in the early and mid-1950s, and the prostitutes in independent Morocco are predominantly Muslim. The demography of prostitutes in Casablanca throughout the twentieth century has been affected by migration from the countryside, and those are the people who populate the city’s slums and the ranks of lower-class prostitutes. More recent demographic changes in Morocco have led to the proliferation of a class of educated women who marry later in life, and some of those women resort to prostitution.
Prostitution in Morocco shares several characteristics with sold sex in other Islamic societies as well as with other colonial and postcolonial societies. Like in other Islamic societies, the social taboo and the legal ban on prostitution is related to a wider taboo on non-marital sex. Women sometimes resort to prostitution because the loss of virginity makes them ineligible for marriage, or automatically they are labelled as prostitutes. A taboo on sexuality also means that venereal prophylactics are not openly discussed, which is detrimental to prostitutes’ sexual health.
As in other colonial societies, prostitution in Casablanca was regulated in the protectorate period. Like the other urban centres discussed in this volume, the city attracted both rural and European migration, and the demand for prostitution increased especially among administrators, soldiers, and factory workers. As with many other postcolonial societies, Morocco had to devise new ways of dealing with prostitution, and abolition was the ultimate choice as it conformed to the regime’s Islamic ideology and was seen as an anti-colonial move. Criminalization, however, does not provide solutions for marginalized women who often resort to prostitution in order to survive.
André Adam, Casablanca: Essai sur la transformation de la société marocaine au contact de l’Occident, 2 vols, (Paris, 1972), ii, p. 149.
Christelle Taraud, “Urbanisme, hygiénisme et prostitution à Casablanca dans les années 1920”, French Colonial History, 7 (2006), pp. 97–108.
Julia Christine Scriven Miller, “The Romance of Regulation: The Movement against State-Regulated Prostitution in France, 1871–1946” (Unpublished Ph.D., New York University, 2000), pp. 387–388.
Sara Carmen Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca (Casablanca, 2008); Frédéric Abécassis, “Sara Carmen Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca”, Lectures: Les comptes rendus, 2009, available at: http://lectures.revues.org/718; last accessed 26 June 2017.
Colin Imber, “Zina in Ottoman Law”, Studies in Ottoman History and Law (Istanbul, 1996), pp. 187–219.
Driss Maghraoui, “Knowledge, Gender and Spatial Configuration in Colonial Casablanca”, in Driss Maghraoui (ed.), Revisiting the Colonial Past in Morocco (London, 2013), pp. 64–86; Taraud, “Urbanisme, hygienisme et prostitution à Casablanca dans les années 1920”, pp. 97–108.
Christelle Taraud, La prostitution coloniale: Algérie, Tunisie, Maroc, 1830–1962 (Paris, 2003), p. 22.
Gwendolyn Wright, The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism (Chicago, 1991), pp. 85–159; Maghraoui, “Knowledge, Gender and Spatial Configuration”, p. 65.
Taraud, La prostitution coloniale, pp. 101–105; Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, p. 41.
Taraud, La prostitution colonial, pp. 105–109; Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, p. 41; “La Prostitution et le contrôle sanitaire des moeurs à Tunis, à Alger et à Casablanca”, Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes [Hereafter cadn], Tunisie- Fonds de la résidence, TU-V-1888, 1.1.1935, pp. 45–51, 57.
Maghraoui, “Knowledge, Gender and Spatial Configuration”, p. 78.
“La Prostitution et le controle sanitaire”, pp. 54–55.
Taraud, La prostitution colonial, pp. 108–112; Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, pp. 41–44.
Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, pp. 105–106.
Ibid., pp. 69–70, 125.
Ibid., p. 37.
Adam, Casablanca, p. 162.
Taraud, La prostitution coloniale, p. 76.
Ibid., pp. 205–206; Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, pp. 45–50.
“La Prostitution et le controle sanitaire”, p. 51.
Taraud, La prostitution coloniale, pp. 68–70; Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, pp. 37, 76, 148–149.
“La Prostitution et le controle sanitaire”, pp. 70–72.
Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, p. 55.
Ibid.; Maghraoui, “Knowledge, Gender and Spatial Configuration”, pp. 75–76.
Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, pp. 58–67, 135.
Ibid., pp. 106, 124–125.
Ibid., pp. 120–121.
“La Prostitution et le controle sanitaire”, p. 52.
Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, pp. 80–82.
Maghraoui, “Knowledge, Gender and Spatial Configuration”, pp. 79–80.
Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, pp. 99–104.
Ibid., p. 152.
Ibid., pp. 58–67, 135.
Ibid.
For the medical debates on Bousbir, see for example, “Etrange progress”, L’Abolitioniste, 2 (1934), p. 4; Dr Lépinay, “Le traitement volontaire et le traitement obligatoire des maladies vénérienne chez les prostituées: Résultat compte d’après les observation faite à Casablanca”, Union International contre le Peril Vénérien, Assemblée Générale, Le Caire, 1933, pp. 142–145; Esquier and Chevalider in La Prophylaxie Antivenerienne, 5 (1933), p. 429.
“La Prostitution et le controle sanitaire”, p. 53.
Mathieu and Maury, Bousbir, p. 141.
Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 21–22.
Mesdali Bennani, “Quelques considerations sur la prostitution au Maroc”, Revue Tunissienne de Sciences Sociales, 4 (October 1967), pp. 79–84.
On the emigration of Europeans from North Africa see for example, Colette Dubois, “La nation et les Français d’outre-mer: Rapatriés ou sinistrés de la décolonisation?” in Jean-Louis Miège and Colette Dubois (eds), L’Europe retrouvée: Les migrations de la décolonisation (Paris, 1994), pp. 75–134. On Jewish emigration, see Michael M. Laskier, “Jewish Migration from Morocco to Israel: Government Policies and the Position of International Jewish Organizations, 1949–56”, Middle Eastern Studies, 25 (1989), pp. 323–362; and “The Instability of Moroccan Jewry and the Moroccan Press in the First Decade after Independence”, Jewish History, 1 (1986), pp. 39–54.
Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 32, 37–39, 53.
Ibid., pp. 19–20. Moroccan scholars have been discussing the complex relationship of Moroccan society with women’s sexuality since the 1980s. See Fatima Mernissi, “Virginity and Patriarchy”, Women’s Studies International Forum 5 (1982), pp. 183–191; Soumaya Naamane-Guessous, Au-delà de toute pudeur: la sexualité féminine au Maroc (Casablanca, 1987); Abdessamad Dialmy, Sexualité et discours au Maroc (Casablanca, 1988); Abdessamad Dialmy, Jeunesse, sida, et islam au Maroc: Les comportements sexuels des marocains (Casablanca, 2000).
Nasima Moujoud and Dolorès Pourette, “‘Traite’ de femmes migrantes, domesticité et prostitution: Á propos de migrations interne et externe”, Cahiers d’études africaines, 45 (2005), pp. 1093–1121; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, p. 59.
Meriam Cheikh, “Echanges sexuels, monétarisés, femmes et féminité au Maroc”, Autrepart, 49 (2009), pp. 173–188, 178; see also Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 39, 55.
Her interviewees were 18 to 38 (mostly 20 to 27) years old. Fatima Zahra Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah (Casablanca, 2001), p. 23.
Age range: 17 to 44; mean: 30. Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 59–60, 93.
Cheikh, “Echanges sexuels, monétarisés”, p. 173. A 1967 study concluded that 15 per cent of prostitutes left their families by the age of 12; half of them worked as domestic servants and 10 per cent as barmaids before or in addition to prostitution. K. Mesdali-Bennani, “Quelques considerations sur la prostitution au Maroc”, Revue Tunissienne de Sciences Sociales, 4 (1967), pp. 79–84.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, pp. 32–33, 41–43.
Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 59–60, 92–93.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, pp. 32–33.
Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, p. 67.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, pp. 60–72; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 56, 65–67.
Moujoud and Pourette, “‘Traite’ de femmes migrantes, domesticité et prostitution”, pp. 1093–1121; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, p. 59.
Cheikh, “Echanges sexuels, monétarisés”, p. 176.
Ibid., pp. 178–182.
Amine Boushaba, Oussama Tawil, Latéfa Imane and Hakima Hammich, “Marginalization and Vulnerability: Male Sex work in Morocco”, in Peter Aggleton (ed.), Men Who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and aids (London, 1999), pp. 263–274.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, p. 74; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 74–75.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, pp. 75–76.
Ibid., pp. 104, 111–112.
Ibid., p. 98; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 72–75, 78–79.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, p. 106; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 34, 79.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, p. 86.
Ibid., 104.
Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 61, 79.
Ibid., p. 47.
Ibid., p. 77.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, pp. 77–80, 84–85; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 47–48.
Azruwil, al-Bighaʾ aw al-jasad al-mustabah, pp. 111–113; Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, p. 68.
Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, pp. 77–78.
Ibid., p. 29.
https://www.aidsalliance.org/about/where-we-work/59-association-marocaine-de-solidarite-et-developpement-amsed; last accessed 7 July 2017.
Benito, La prostitution dans les rues de Casablanca, p. 90.
Ibid., pp. 82–83.
Ibid., p. 90.
Ibid., p. 47.
Ibid., pp. 83–89.