Five university professors sued in ‘sex against good grades’ scandal in Morocco

RABAT - Four university professors appeared before the Moroccan courts on Tuesday, accused of sexual blackmail on students in exchange for good grades, an unprecedented scandal that splashes the university institution.

The so-called “sex against good grades” affair was relayed in September by local media after the dissemination on social networks of messages of a sexual nature exchanged between one of the professors prosecuted and his students.

Five academics in total are involved in the scandal. Three were jailed and the other two released on bail.

Four of the accused, teachers at Hassan I University in Settat, a town near Casablanca, face heavy charges: “incitement to debauchery”, “gender discrimination”, “violence against women”, said a close source. Their trial has been adjourned until December 14, according to media reports.

The fifth, who is under arrest, is being prosecuted for “indecent assault with violence”, a more serious charge.

He is due to appear at first instance on Wednesday before the criminal chamber of the Settat court of appeal, said the source familiar with the case.

Since the scandal, the dean of the Faculty of Law and Economics of Settat resigned at the end of November and the president of the university could be sanctioned.

At the same time, an investigation was opened by the National Brigade of the Judicial Police (BNPJ).

In recent years, several cases of sexual harassment suffered by students from their professors in Moroccan universities have been publicized, but often without complaints being filed. And when they were, most went unanswered.

Filing a complaint against the sex offender is a very rare process in a conservative society which most often pushes victims of sexual violence to keep silent, for fear of reprisals, of the eyes of others or to protect the reputation of the family.

Human rights associations and the media regularly sound the alarm bells on the violence inflicted on Moroccan women.

In 2018, after years of heated debate, a law entered into force. For the first time, it makes punishable by prison terms acts “considered to be forms of harassment, assault, sexual exploitation or ill-treatment.”

The text was, however, judged “insufficient” by women’s rights movements which call for greater severity in the face of this scourge.