Newspaper article 4, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina

Women and smuggling: A temporal choice or an alternative strategy?

By Zahra El Amirat
Al Alam, No.16811, 7 May 1996

Under this title, the department of anthropology and social sciences organized a preliminary meeting, during which both Professor Rachida Afilal and Professor Mostapha Naimi gave their talks that were meant to analyze this phenomenon and the considerations that came out of it, in the light of various data – about women’s prominence in public life and her undisputed perceptive presence. Rachida Afilal’s talk focused on the considerations that encircle this phenomenon and explain how does the notion of smuggling remains linked to a set of socio-cultural meanings, which in their turn endow it with a an aura of secrecy and shame. This latter meaning interests the researcher who is haunted by framing and speculative obsessions; their aim is to approach the notion and make an endeavor to put it in its adequate field, in one framework of analysis; the fact of approaching the activity of smuggling in general, and woman in relation to smuggling particularly, remains multifunctional and multidimensional. This approach requires the limitation of the phenomenon to three fundamental remarks.

First Remark: situating the phenomenon within its right frame as being the result of economical pressures which are faced by a variety of families; the historical dimension: since the phenomenon is rooted in some places such as the north of Morocco for instance. The geographical dimension is shaped especially by geographical and ecological characteristics of some zones known as zones of traffic. There is also the sociological dimension which is shaped by the structure of the family, its function, and its forms of interactions. The psychological dimension specific to the smuggler woman herself, that is, what is the class of women that heads towards this activity.

The second remark: treats the notion of smuggling and the paradoxes which surround it; is it an unstructured activity? Is it considered as an informal activity? Is it a trade that has all the qualities that characterize informal activity? All these inquiries have their contexts, and in the shadow of the same remark, the researcher professor gives an illustrative example through fieldwork about women and smuggling in the region of Tetouan; we are confronted through this example with two notions of the contraband usually circulating under the same meaning and form which are: “Trabando” and “Traffic”. They are two activities particular in their philosophy, ethics, and the way they are being pursued.

The first notion is concerned with the spreading of goods and different products through illegal means; these commodities are usually food, clothes, kitchen utensils and cosmetics all imported from Ceuta, Melilla, Iberia and Gibraltar, and they are being spread either on order or in a free form of trade. As to the second kind of activity, it is linked particularly to the traffic of drugs, weapons and currency.

The third remark: tackles the daily life of the smuggler woman in both familial and social contexts. The researcher professor insisted on considering that the importance of phenomenon is not a passing one and it goes beyond mere political discourse. There has been a focus on the study of this phenomenon since the early 1990’s, that is, in a period when the phenomenon was not the centre of public interest.

The researcher professor ended her talk with questions about women and smuggling extracted from research that studied the pattern of female smugglers in the region of Tetouan such as:

- Does the pattern of the female contrabandists express to what extent they act within the framework of their society?
-Does smuggling in its female mode represent an indicator of the efficiency of the woman as a citizen and as an active participant in managing her family’s future?

-Does the woman satisfy her ambitions owning the mechanisms to control her life and world by means of contraband?

In the second talk, Professor Muhamad Naimi treated the historical side of the phenomenon. He explained how the Moroccan woman has always participated in commerce. Working as a trader or as a smuggler is an age old activity for her. The Moroccan woman used to sew carpets and “Hayeks” then take them to the markets, going through long distances, that is, she formerly practiced an economy that did not create an accumulation nor did rely on capital, and it was an economy that had the shape of a local kind of commerce. A discussion was raised among the participants in the meeting about the work of women in the past and whether a comparison can be established between local commerce and contraband; and whether pursuing commercial work in the past by women can be considered as an older kind of smuggling?

At the end of the meeting, the questions raised remained open: “What are the alternatives that we can suggest in order to counter smuggling? The female smuggler: What is her role, importance, and destiny?”

Translator: Hind Salhi