Members of the Moroccan community in Indonesia celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) with joy and a renewed commitment to women’s empowerment at Fez-Kiniara Dining & Lounge in Jakarta on March 9.

Thanks to Moroccan King Mohammed VI’s vision of gender equality and women’s empowerment, Moroccan women are in a better position in society today. Moroccan people hold women in high esteem and appreciate their contribution to society.

“Women play an important role in our society. Though we celebrate International Women’s Day every March 8, in my opinion every day belongs to women. We have 365 days in a year, so every day is International Women’s Day,” Moroccan Ambassador to Indonesia Ouadia Benabdellah said on Saturday at the gathering.

Moroccan women have achieved many accomplishments in the past as well in the present.

“Moroccan women played a significant role in Morocco’s freedom struggle,” Ambassador Benabdellah told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

Morocco, a rising star in North Africa with a constitutional monarchy, has more women than men, making up 50.49 percent of the population, according to 2016 World Bank data. Moroccan women students currently outnumber and outperform their male counterparts in universities.

Though the Kingdom of Morocco is an Arab state in which 99 percent of the population is Muslim, Moroccan women, who are mostly moderate and modern, presently occupy prominent positions in the government, diplomacy, business and science and technology.

The Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Jakarta currently has four diplomats, two of whom are women including senior diplomat Latifa Louali. She works as a minister counselor at the embassy.

Latifa, who is 17 years into a distinguished diplomatic career, is also a proud mother of one son.

She has a Ph.D degree in biology. Her job has nothing to do with her studies.

Latifa Louali

The head of the Moroccan state news agency Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP) in Jakarta is also a women, Nadia Al Ahmar.

“Many women work in our agency MAP. My female colleagues work in Oslo, Brussels and many other cities in the world,” Nadia told the Post.

Nadia covers both political and economic news in the world’s biggest Muslim country, Indonesia.

According to MAP, there are nine women ministers in the 39-member Moroccan Cabinet, a large number for the conservative Arab world.

Many people in the West believe that Muslim women, especially Arab women, lag behind in the fields of education, sports, science and technology compared to their counterparts in the West.

But Morocco, a country of 36 million people, has many amazing and inspiring women. Have you ever heard of Touria Chaoui? She obtained a pilot license at the age of 15 in 1951, becoming the first Arab and Muslim woman to obtain a pilot license in the world.

The North African country also has Olympic champion Nawal El Moutawakil, the first Muslim woman from Africa to win a gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the United States. She won gold in the 400 meters hurdles event. In 2007, she became Morocco’s minister of sports.

Likewise, Asmaa Boujibar, a young researcher at the United States-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), writer Fatima Mernissi, astronomer Merieme Chadid, film director Sanaa Hamri, economist Hynd Bouhia and senior UNESCO ambassador Aziza Bennani are the best epitomes of Moroccan women.

The IWD event was organized by the Moroccans’ Association in Indonesia. Many Moroccan women, Indonesians married to Moroccans, diplomats and Moroccans living in Indonesia attended the celebration.

The association’s president Ahmed Elgharib welcomed the guests while praising Moroccan women’s achievements both in Morocco and abroad. A video was also shown depicting Moroccan women’s achievements.

Serious look: The head of the Moroccon state news agency Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP), Nadia El Ahmar (left), shows something to a Moroccan woman on her cell phone during the celebration of International Women’s Day in Jakarta on March 9.

Photos by JP/Veeramalla Anjaiah