Bouchra Chetouani
Bouchra Chetouani is a Moroccan woman human rights defender. She spent her childhood and youth in the struggle for equality and dignity, especially for women. At the age of 18, she became an active member of the National Union of Moroccan Students, when she was first arrested for her human rights work in 2004.
She is a volunteer broadcaster at Radio Al-Jusoor, the first community radio in Morocco; a founding member of the Young Women for Democracy group, and then its national coordinator; responsible for advocating for the Aman Association for the Protection of Children; Pedagogical coordinator for Anir Academy and the mobile unit for the protection of children in the situation of Anir Inezgane Street, Director of the Yoda Project, which supports agricultural workers in Inezgane Province, and the Hear Me campaign to encourage female workers to political participation; production officer at Radio Listen to Her, and other projects.
In response to the February 2011 pro-reform protests in Morocco, inspired by sister movements in Egypt and Tunisia, King Mohammed VI promised reform, including the “strengthening of human rights in all their dimensions, political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, and developmental”. The new constitution, which was voted in by the country’s electorate in July 2011, prohibited torture and ill treatment, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances, guaranteed greater equality for women and introduced other positive legal reforms.
