Activist – Writer
Fatna El Bouih has succeeded in
making of her tragic story an engine to help others. Victim of the repression years, she spent five
years in detention before becoming an activist in the Moroccan Observatory of Prisons
in 1999. Then, with a handful of volunteers, she worked for the reintegration
of former inmates, within the “Prison-Society Relay” structure, created in 2005
and currently chaired by her. Her fight: strive to have the harsh conditions of women and children in detention evolve. "I have chosen to focus my action on the
dozens of children imprisoned in prisons since the Moroccan law allows each mother
to keep her child until he or she reaches the age of five”, says Fatna El
Bouih. First
mission: the creation and management of a daycare center in the women's quarter
of the local prison of Ain Sebaâ, in Casablanca. Today, one of the priorities of the NGO is the
schooling of the children of former female inmates with the coverage of the
fees related to the purchase of school supplies. Another achievement is the introduction of art
therapy workshops for female inmates. This experience, initiated in the prison
of Casablanca, first with Dominique Langlois in 2013 and then in partnership
with the “La Scala” café, was generalized to other Moroccan prisons with the
support of the psychologists of the department of corrections of the country. Fatna El Bouih received the “Sofitel Tour
Blanche” literary prize in 2016 for her autobiography entitled “A woman named Rasheed” published by "Le
Fennec" publishers.