UN Women: Grants for ending Early and Forced Child Marriage in Morocco

Deadline: 17-Jun-21

The United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women “UN Women” is now inviting qualified bidders to send their proposals for implementation of capacity building actions for justice professionals and advocacy and awareness actions to end early and forced marriages in Morocco. UN Women plans to initiate cooperation with a civil society organization in accordance with the present call.

The UN Women office in Morocco has established, with the support of the Office of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor within the United States Department of State, a program aligned with national priorities in Morocco, including the objective is the fight against early and forced marriage. This program contributes to one of the three strategic intervention priorities of UN Women: the fight against violence against women and girls.

The analysis of the existing situation confirms the need to continue the efforts initiated at the level of the legislative framework, in the positive dynamic which has materialized with the adoption of Law on violence against women, and provide technical support to

• strengthen existing initiatives, such as sensitization and training of justice professionals in accordance with new legal provisions and the recent internal policy of the Public Ministry on early marriage and forced marriages ,
• implement social caravans aimed at reaching isolated and most vulnerable women and girls facing a high prevalence rate of early and forced marriages,
• support civil society initiatives and the media on changing social norms and promoting positive and institutional masculinities in LCVFF.

Purpose

The purpose of the proposal is to:

• Build the capacity of justice professionals who have primary responsibility for processing early marriage applications and providing assistance to women and girls. They should therefore have the necessary knowledge about the existing arrangements, and have a space to discuss implementation difficulties and ways to overcome potential obstacles ; and
• To increase the knowledge of women, girls, men and boys, of the rights of women and girls and of social norms favorable to gender equality. Indeed , socio-cultural resistance is the main obstacle to a profound change in mentalities within not only service providers, but also the entire population, women, girls, men and boys, who each have a r ole to play in eradicating violence against women and girls.

Funding Information

• The budget range of the proposal must correspond to an amount between 3,50,000 M AD and 4,50,000 MAD.
• The proposed action plan will have a term of ten – nine months

Outputs

The interventions expected from the implementing partner fall within the strategic priority “Combating violence against women and girls” of the UN Women work plan. The interventions expected from the implementing partner (s) will aim to participate in the following results chain, through the contribution to the achievement of two outputs:

• Output 1: Supportive social norms, attitudes and behaviors are encouraged at community and individual levels to prevent early and forced marriage
• Output 2: The knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of justice professionals, women and girls, and those around them are promoted to end early and forced marriages.

Results

• Impact Result: Women and girls are socially and economically empowered to freely exercise their rights in marriage
• Immediate Result: The culture of early and forced marriage is rejected and Moroccan women and girls, men and boys foster relationships of equality and respect

Skills

• Technical and operational skills required 
  • The implementing partner should demonstrate the following skills:
    • Mastery of results-based management;
    • The gender approach;
    • Capacity building and awareness;
    • Advocacy and communication;
    • Community mobilization.
• Other skills, which, although not required, may be an asset in service delivery
  • Knowledge of the legal framework and public policies in the field of the fight against violence against women and girls in Morocco, and particularly of the fight against the marriage of minors;
  • An expertize for the production of knowledge / data on child marriage in Morocco;
  • The innovation in awareness of people living particularly in peri-urban and rural areas (especially areas experiencing increasing marriage) on violence against women and girls, and particular of fight against the marriage of minors.

For more information, visit https://arabstates.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/programme-implementation/2021/05/call-for-proposals-ending-early-and-forced-marriages-in-morocco