Aicha Chenna, a woman for millions of men

On September 25, 2022, the remarkable Aicha Chenna passed away. When we measure the noble and exceptional work she accomplished, we realize that her achievements border on the miraculous, given how discouraging, hostile, and opposed the environment was to her projects and initiatives. That a woman took single mothers under her wing—mothers who gave birth out of wedlock—and welcomed children branded as “bastards” and abandoned for being born outside of sacred bonds, and did so as early as the 1980s, is truly incredible. This was a period when so-called “Eastern” winds began sweeping across Morocco like a devastating hurricane, with the blessing of those in power, amidst a society addicted to false moral purity and a superficial religiosity. Her actions were shocking, striking, and utterly extraordinary.

Even if the reality of such an approach could be conceived at the time, it was perceived as a promotion of debauchery, an incitement to sin, a defense of prostitution, and a normalization of vice and immorality… or at least, that is what malicious pens and tongues accused the great Aicha of. Who could have stood their ground, regardless of their willpower and determination, and pursued their struggle in the face of these destructive accusations—whose religious, moral, and social weight far outweighed their penal severity, thereby multiplying their power to incite hatred? Only the great Aicha knew how to stand her ground and chart her course, like a resistant and a fighter, until she overcame obstacles and difficulties to earn national and international recognition.

Greater than Mother Teresa

Many nicknamed her the Moroccan “Mother Teresa” in tribute to her sacrifices and noble deeds, comparing her to Mother Teresa (1910-1997), the Albanian-born Indian nun also renowned for her devotion and charitable work. I consider this comparison unfair to the great Aicha, however. Why? Because it ignores a fundamental difference between the great Aicha and the Indian Mother Teresa—a gap so wide that the former’s sacrifices far eclipse the latter’s, rendering any comparison inoperative, for there can be no comparison where the nature of the situations differs radically.

What is it about? While what unites the great Aicha and Mother Teresa is the fact that they devoted their lives to helping the weak, the destitute, the sick, and orphans, what separates them is of another nature: all the actions carried out by Mother Teresa were strongly recommended by religion, advocated by morality, encouraged by society, and authorized by the law. Conversely, those of the great Aicha were judged contrary to religious precepts, disapproved of by morality, rejected by society, and unrecognized by the law. Mother Teresa found absolute support and encouragement from religion, morality, society, the law, and even political power. The actions of the great Aicha, on the other hand, met with the opposition and rejection of religion, morality, society, and the law. Mother Teresa operated within the framework of the “licit,” while the great Aicha was perceived as acting within the “illicit.” For Mother Teresa, the primary source of her charitable acts was religion; for Aicha, the primary source of the obstacles placed in her path was precisely religion. These divergences mean that the former’s sacrifices were much easier than the latter’s, to the point of seeming almost ordinary compared to the extraordinary work of the great Aicha—a work that, as I have emphasized, borders on the miracle when one keeps in mind the violence of the obstacles and hurdles amid which she operated, in stark contrast to the benign conditions in which Mother Teresa evolved.

A Saint Through Humanity, Not Religion

Many also describe her as a “saint,” in reference to the nobility of her soul, the height of her morality, the sincerity of her devotion, and the purity of her intentions. But here again, the term does not quite correspond to reality. Why? Because “sanctity,” as a Christian religious concept, stems from religion and is consubstantial with it. The title of “saint,” which corresponds in Islamic culture to the concept of the “holy man” (wali), is conferred on those who serve God and draw closer to Him through their asceticism, piety, sincerity, and inner purity, far beyond what ordinary believers do.

Thus, sanctity in Christianity—just like tutelary sanctity in Islam—draws its source from religion, and more directly from God. As for the great Aicha, if we may venture to call her a “saint,” she draws this sanctity not from religion and God, but from the human being (women and children) to whom she dedicated her existence to serve, protect, and shelter. She is a “saint” not through renunciation of the world, overabundant piety, or grueling night prayers, but for having alleviated the physical and psychological sufferings of a single mother rejected by society, punished by the law (for the offense of debauchery accompanied by pregnancy), reviled by morality, and for having welcomed a child whom society disowns, whose law refuses biological paternal filiation, and who most often finds himself destitute of all support and subsistence. Through this highly humanist and noble behavior, she rises far above the status of a simple saint or a wali.

Between Justice and Equity

She is more and better than that still, because through her attitude, she defied iniquitous justice to embody true equity. Since justice consists of the application of the law, it can prove iniquitous when the law applied by the judge is itself iniquitous. The legal provision that deprives a child of recognition by their biological father is an iniquitous law that violates their rights to filiation, subsistence, and inheritance. Similarly, legislation that ignores pregnancy out of wedlock does an injury to the single mother, who is deprived of any alimony from the father, who thus finds himself exonerated from the slightest responsibility toward his own flesh and blood.

The issue goes far beyond a mere legal loophole; it extends to the denial of self-evident rights, such as a child’s right to financial support from their biological father, to bear his name, and to inherit from him. Aicha Chenna dedicated herself to closing these gaps and righting these wrongs, not by invoking a blind justice that merely applies incomplete and rights-denying legislation, but by championing the principle of equity. Equity is not to be confused with justice based on general rules; it is the form of justice attentive to the specifics of every situation when safeguarding rights overlooked by the law becomes essential, without entirely displacing legal justice in favor of exceptional rule. Indeed, when strictly applied, the law can generate the denial of rights that its general provisions ignore, such as refusing to recognize the filiation between a child born out of wedlock and their biological father.

Roman law scholars were fond of repeating an adage attributed to Cicero: “summum jus, summa injuria,” meaning that the rigorous application of the law leads to injustice. Although she likely never engaged with the theoretical distinction between justice and equity, the great Aicha possessed an innate human sensibility that guided her toward equity, thereby correcting the oversights and blind spots of a predatory legislation that denied rights in the very cases she championed—those concerning single mothers and their children born outside of legal unions.

Exonerating Men from Responsibility Encourages Immorality

Advocates of purported moral purity who oppose any legislative amendment aimed at recognizing the filiation of a child born out of wedlock to their biological father—accompanied by the latter’s obligation to provide for the child as if they were “legitimate”—argue that such a reform would encourage immorality by fostering the proliferation of extramarital sexual relations.

First, if refusing to recognize the paternal filiation of a natural child effectively curbed extramarital affairs, that refusal would be somewhat comprehensible, if not desirable. Yet the reality, which these moralizers know full well, is that this rigid law, detrimental to the interests of both child and mother, is utterly ineffective in reducing the rate of extramarital relationships. Second, and this is the height of absurdity, this legislation actively encourages men to engage in such relationships by guaranteeing them total civil impunity regarding their own offspring—the exact opposite of a situation where they would know they are legally bound to support that child for eighteen full years as a father. We imported the concept of the “single mother” from the West while rejecting its inseparable implications: the full responsibility of the biological father toward the child he fathered outside of marriage.

A Woman Worth a Million Men

The great Aicha defended the rights of women and children like no one before her, through concrete, productive actions that should shame all those who, from morning till night, pontificate on women’s and children’s rights while maintaining a dead silence regarding the single mother—treated as a pariah—and the child born out of wedlock, as if they did not exist. It is worth emphasizing here that the issue of equal inheritance between men and women, brandished by activist and feminist associations, constitutes a less burdensome and less acute problem than that of single mothers and their offspring.

Despite this, media and political attention focuses on inheritance while obscuring the tragedy of single mothers—a subject that self-proclaimed defenders of women’s rights scarcely broached until Aicha Chenna brought to light the true and massive scale of this inescapable reality, which no veneer of false virtue can conceal. Having devoted herself heart and soul to single mothers and abandoned children, she faced fierce attacks from these self-appointed guardians of morality, who accused her of encouraging prostitution and vice, as though illicit relationships and births out of wedlock only emerged when Aicha tackled the phenomenon.

History will nevertheless remember that she was infinitely more honest and honorable than these two-bit moralists who spread calumnies, accusing her of damaging the honor of Morocco and Moroccans. When one contemplates the titanic work accomplished by this simple woman—devoid of university degrees, without prominent political affiliation, unelected to parliament, and estranged from circles of power and decision-making—one can only conclude that she was a woman worth millions of men. Particularly those men who, armed with their offices, mandates, and political positions—such as members of parliament—hold the power in their hands to easily amend legislation and enact new, equitable laws for women in general, and for single mothers and their children in particular. The great Aicha remains an immense source of pride for Morocco and all its children.

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