Jeunes Marocaines : les images interdites d'une réalité cachée

·29 min·2 clips

In El Jadidah, protests erupt after 11-year-old Khadija dies from beatings while working as a domestic servant.

1. Culture française presents a documentary investigation into the practice of employing underage girls as domestic workers in Morocco, known locally as petites bonnes. 2. Journalist Fouad Meskout, based in El Jadida, serves as the primary field reporter; the Baiti association in Casablanca and its field worker Saida are the main institutional sources. 3. The episode is anchored by the death of Radija, an 11-year-old girl beaten to death by her employer Amina in El Jadida on July 26th, a case that provoked street protests in the city. 4. According to the report, approximately 80,000 girls under 15 are currently employed as domestic workers in Moroccan cities, despite a law explicitly prohibiting child labour. 5. The episode reconstructs Radija's death: Amina beat the girl with a heel sandal and rubber pipe after a dispute over a washed shirt, then claimed the death was accidental; she is awaiting trial. 6. Amina's sister, speaking through an interphone, does not contest that Amina hit Radija but attributes the death to 'a bad fall' and invokes divine will: 'God is a witness.' 7. Radija's father, illiterate and in shock on the day of his daughter's death, signed a document under his employer's instructions that committed him not to press charges—not knowing what it said. 8. In Casablanca, the Baiti association's field worker Saida visits families known to employ young girls, including one couple who initially deny having employed children before contradicting themselves. 9. Saida explains the economic logic: a full adult domestic worker costs 2,000 to 2,500 dirhams per month; a girl under 15 costs far less and employers in modest households justify the choice on financial grounds. 10. In an undercover operation in Marrakech, journalists posing as prospective employers are offered a 13-year-old girl for 1,000 dirhams—under 100 euros—per month, 24 hours a day, with the money going directly to her family. 11. The intermediary, a real estate agent, describes a fraudulent contract structure: the document states the girl is merely 'keeping company' with the employer; the financial arrangement is kept verbal and off the record. 12. The journalists are taken to meet Nadia, 13, in a two-room slum in Marrakech; she says explicitly she does not want to work or be called a domestic, while her mother and the intermediary pressure her to comply. 13. Nadia's mother asks only that strangers 'treat her well' and is prepared to hand her daughter over without any payment to herself, hoping for a better life for the child. 14. At the Baiti shelter in Casablanca, sisters Afida (13) and Rachida (14) are recovering after escaping their employer; Rachida has a recurring eye infection from a blow delivered with a ringed fist. 15. The two sisters, who are illiterate, describe being kept awake until late, woken early, fed only the previous day's leftovers, and beaten daily; they were also prevented from seeing their father. 16. Association workers use role-playing exercises to teach the girls to say 'I want to study, not work,' a line Afida finds difficult to deliver without crying. 17. Economist analysis notes that the practice persists because urban families with modest incomes cannot afford adult domestic help, creating structural demand that poverty in rural Morocco supplies. 18. The tone is investigative and sombre, combining field reporting, undercover footage, shelter visits, and a courtroom hearing; no entertainment elements are present. 19. Best for listeners interested in child rights, trafficking, investigative journalism, and social conditions in North Africa. 20. Unsuitable for listeners who cannot tolerate accounts of child abuse or who prefer analysis over first-person testimony.

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