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2 JLL 1 (2013)

handle is hein.journals/jlangaw2 and id is 1 raw text is: ) LL 2 (2013):1-18 Rape as Loss of Honor in the Discourse of Moroccan Rape Trials Prof. Fatima-Zahra Lamrani Abstract The importance of a girl's virginity and its strong association with a girl's honor and that of her family is deeply rooted in the Moroccan culture. This importance is structured and revealed in the Moroccan penal code, which makes loss of virginity an aggravating circumstance of rape. This cultural association between virginity and honor constitutes an oppressive ideology which permeates the discourse of rape trials and generates a number of confusions that are detrimental to the victims of rape. Moreover, the fact that consensual sex outside marriage is forbidden by the Islamic religion and law, for it is considered as a sin (zina), generates a number of negative assumptions about the rape victim's social image and virtue, and tends to categorize her according to a number of female stigmatized stereotypes. This article aims at showing how these cultural and religious elements, manifest in the discourse of law representatives and lay litigants, function as discursive strategies which blur the issue of rape and contribute to the treatment of its victims as culprits, guilty of crimes of honor, thus making of rape a high-risk complaint for a woman in Morocco. 1. Previous Research on Discourse in Rape Trials Research in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has revealed that discourse plays a dynamic role in constructing social reality. It is the vehicle via which social reality is constructed, reinforced and maintained (Fairclough, 1989; Fisher and Todd, 1986; Foucault, 1972; Johnstone, zooo), including social institutions like the courtroom and social categories like gender. As reported by CDA scholars, the ways we communicate are constrained by the structures and forces of these social institutions and identities within which we function and live, and these social institutions and categories in turn are defined and shaped by our use of language or discourse (Fairclough, 1989; 1992). This ongoing dialectic interaction between discourse and social order is not a neutral and harmless exercise; rather, it generates a number of ideologies which are circulated via discourse. The danger in these ideologies is that they serve to empower some participants but serve to disempower and oppress others. As a result, discourse can serve as a vehicle for creating, maintaining and perpetuating injustice, as is the case in rape trials. Indeed, rape trials are a good example of arenas where a disempowered group has to struggle against the oppressive (in this case, patriarchal) ideologies which permeate the discourse of the social institution. DOI: 10.14762/jii.2013.001

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