This paper analyses how the Moroccan Family code reforms of 1993 and of 2003 have created a new type of politics in Morocco. Using the democratic transitions literature as the theoretical framework, it questions how a social movement, which was absolutely marginal in the first phase of political liberalization, was able to obtain significant policy reform after the democratic transition had essentially failed. The Family Code offers an insightful opportunity to analyse not only the issue of women’s rights promotion but, especially, the democratization process of the Moroccan political system and the debate concerning it. The paper argues that in order to successfully obtain the reforms it was demanding, the women’s movement had to isolate itself from political parties and transform itself from a prodemocracy movement to an advocacy movement focusing strictly on issues related to women’s rights. The literature on Morocco largely attributes Morocco’s democratic reforms to King Mohamed VI’s commitment to the Family Code reforms and refers to the reforms’ opponents as traditionalists, ultraconservative or Islamists. An analysis of the women’s movement provides an interesting and at times counter-intuitive picture of this description and of the relationship between democracy and women’s rights in Morocco. The inclusion of the rhetoric of women’s rights by the monarchy dates back to King Hassan II and the opposition cannot be reduce to a simple dichotomy of traditionalists versus modernists. The structural and strategic changes that occurred within the women’s movement are useful to investigate not only how the movement has appropriated the civil society label but how, and to what extent, the policies promoted by different international organisations have taken concrete form. This research is based on interviews with representatives of the women’s movement, Islamist, political and civil society leaders between 2008-2010.