MOROCCO:  Tier 2 
Morocco is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children who are subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. Some rural Moroccan girls as young as 6 years old are recruited to work in domestic service in cities and become victims of forced labor, experiencing nonpayment of wages, threats, restrictions on movement, and physical, psychological, or sexual abuse; however, an NGO reported the incidence of child domestic work has decreased since 2005. Some Moroccan boys endure forced labor while employed as apprentices in the artisanal and construction industries and in mechanic shops. Some men, women, and children, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, enter Morocco voluntarily, but illegally, with the assistance of smugglers; upon arrival, some of the women and older girls are coerced into prostitution or, less frequently, domestic service. International organizations and local NGOs report unaccompanied children and women from Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria are highly vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor in Morocco. Some women from the Philippines and Indonesia are recruited for employment as domestic workers in Morocco; upon arrival, some are subjected to forced labor, experiencing nonpayment of wages, withholding of passports, and physical abuse at the hands of their employers. A local NGO noted in 2014 that the lack of a Philippine embassy or consulate in Morocco puts Philippine nationals, particularly domestic workers, at additional risk of trafficking and makes it more difficult for them

to receive protection services. Criminal networks operating in Oujda, on the Algerian border, as well as in the northern coastal town of Nador, force undocumented foreign migrant women into prostitution and begging; these networks in Oujda also reportedly force children into begging. Some female migrants who transit Oujda, particularly Nigerians, are forced into prostitution once they reach Europe. In 2014, Morocco experienced a notable increase in the number of Syrian migrants and refugees, though no information about their vulnerability to trafficking in Morocco was available.
Moroccan men, women, and children are exploited in forced labor and sex trafficking primarily in Europe and the Middle East. Moroccan women are forced into prostitution primarily in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Syria, and in Europe; some of them experience restrictions on movement, threats, and emotional and physical abuse. Recruiters reportedly offer Moroccan men jobs in the Persian Gulf, but seize the victims’ passports and subject them to debt bondage after arrival. Some Moroccan men and boys, initially lured to Europe by fraudulent job offers, are subsequently forced to sell drugs. Some foreigners, particularly European nationals primarily from France and Spain, engage in child sex tourism in major Moroccan cities.
The Government of Morocco does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. In the reporting period, the government moderately improved efforts to support civil society organizations that work with vulnerable migrant populations. It also developed a national anti-trafficking action plan to adopt anti-trafficking legislation. Moroccan law does not prohibit all forms of human trafficking, and officials continued to conflate human trafficking, human smuggling, and illegal migration. The government reported on its modest efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking and trafficking-related crimes; however, it was unable to provide documentation of the convictions of trafficking offenders in 2014. For several years, the government has failed to proactively identify or provide protective services to trafficking victims among vulnerable populations. It made negligible efforts to screen for trafficking victims among irregular migrants, especially the sub-Saharan migrant community, and authorities continued to round up, arrest, detain, and deport foreign trafficking victims among this population.

RECOMMENDATIONS  FOR MOROCCO:
Enact and implement legislation that prohibits all forms of trafficking and prescribes sufficiently stringent penalties for all forms of human trafficking, distinct from human smuggling; significantly increase investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of trafficking offenders, and ensure stringent sentencing; ensure victims are not punished for crimes committed as a direct result of being subjected to human trafficking, such as immigration violations; proactively identify trafficking victims, especially among the foreign migrant community; develop and implement formal procedures for victim

identification and subsequent referral to care; provide funding and in-kind support to NGOs that provide specialized services for trafficking victims, including foreign victims, and refer victims to these service providers; significantly improve law enforcement data collection and reporting, including the disaggregation of data between human trafficking and human smuggling crimes; and conduct public awareness campaigns addressing all forms of trafficking.

PROSECUTION
The government made modest anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. Morocco lacks an anti-trafficking law, which remained a serious obstacle to successfully prosecuting human trafficking crimes and contributed to confusion among officials in differentiating human smuggling, illegal migration, and human trafficking offenses. Morocco’s penal code prohibits forced child labor through Article 467-2, which prescribes punishment of one to three years’ imprisonment.The penal code also prohibits forced prostitution and child prostitution through Articles 497-499, which prescribe punishment of up to 10 years’ or life imprisonment for crimes found to have occurred with aggravated circumstances. The penal code does not specifically define and penalize sex trafficking. Article 10 of Morocco’s labor code prohibits forced labor of a worker; this offense is punishable by a fine for the first offense and a jail term of up to three months for subsequent offenses. With the exception of the punishments for aggravated forced and child prostitution crimes, the penalties are generally insufficiently stringent. The government reported modest law enforcement efforts against potential sex trafficking crimes. The government reported multiple cases involving suspects allegedly engaged in the prostitution and sexual exploitation of children; however, without details on these cases, it was unclear whether they included trafficking offenses and if any trafficking offenders were brought to justice.The government reported it initiated the prosecution of 37 individuals employing children as domestic workers; however, it was unclear whether any of these cases amounted to forced labor. It also reported disbanding 19 human smuggling and trafficking networks in 2013 and 2014, but it did not provide details about efforts to investigate and prosecute criminal actions by such groups. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking. The government provided anti-trafficking training for 937 Royal Gendarmerie officials/border guards, as well as for other government ministries, NGOs, and journalists at one session held in November 2014.