Sexual innuendos, fondling, inappropriate remarks…For some university students, the academic experience is tinged with this sort of abuse. Sexual harassment in Tunisia’s higher learning institutions is a widespread phenomenon that is both normalized but also “almost taboo.”
Violence against women has reached an alarming high. On average, one woman is killed by her husband every month. Law 58 of 2017 was adopted to prevent such violence. And yet five years later, the political will and resources necessary for its application are still MIA.
Their names are Baya Zardi, Hanène Elleuch, Najla Ettounssia, Rania Toumi… What they share in common: a certain representation of beauty and knack for creating a buzz. And indeed, they devote themselves body and soul to this end—even when it sets them against other women.
Migratory waves often coincide with the failure of social movements to achieve their objectives. A recent report notes a spike in clandestine migration that correlates with failed protest movements in the Gafsa mining basin and in Tataouine. « Irregular migration has become a form of collective protest », observes sociologue Khaled Tababi. A form of protest in which women are increasingly taking part.
Some 715 out-of-wedlock births were reported in 2019, according to the annual report on the activities of childhood protection officers. The majority of these births (44.33%, or 317 births) took place in the central-eastern part of Tunisia. What is the fate of single mothers in a society that ostracizes them? Nawaat went to meet three of these young mothers at Beity, a shelter that offers assistance to women in distress and victims of violence.
According to the Minister of Women, Children and the Elderly, Asma Shiri Laabidi, violence against women in Tunisia has increased five-fold since March 2019. Since the start of the confinement period, several associations have red-flagged this trend. With its support centers set up in different regions, the Tunisian Association of Women Democrats (ATFD) warns about the increase both physical and symbolic violence against women. In an interview with Nawaat, ATFD president Yosra Frawes goes into detail.
In anticipation of International Women’s Day on March 8, Tunisian civil society organizations are campaigning for the expedient adoption of legislation concerning the elimination of violence against women. The Tunisian Association of Women Democrats (ATFD), the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LTDH), and other non-governmental associations who are the first recourse for women victims of violence, are pushing for the adoption of a pending draft law, even while one of their primary critiques regarding the text is its failure to recognize the essential role played by non-governmental actors.
For the past two weeks, some fifty women have assembled each day in front of the delegation of Jebiniana in hopes of a better life.
Every time I attend what seems to be a sophisticated intellectual social event and mention unresolved women issues and the need for a feminist revolution in Tunisia, it backfires on me with what I view as inconsiderate prejudices. Some educated members of civil society think that what Tunisian women have accomplished today is more than enough and that demanding any more rights might lead to turning women into better citizens than men. If this is the case with educated individuals, imagine how it is with those in remote and marginalized areas.
Parliamentary elections, presidential elections, the forming of a new government – Tunisia’s young democracy has covered many milestones within the last months. What picture of Tunisia has been conveyed in German media during this important period in history? The following is an overview of how German journalists portray the political situation in Tunisia at the moment and which aspects catch their interest.
Our activists have somehow committed “Feminist plagiarism”, borrowing a foreign concept heedless of its source and unfaithful of its uses, without revision or modification. In this de-volutionary process, our Feminists transfigured revolutionary thought into “mammary thought” and transformed social justice marches into “bourgeois catwalks”.
In a country riddled with political problems, the occasion of International Women’s Day turned to yet another opportunity to protest against the government. Chants of ‘the people want the fall of the regime’ dominated a rally that was initially organized to support women’s rights in Tunisia.
On August 1, 2012, the Tunisian committee on rights and liberties – one of the constitutional committees charged with drafted different chapter in the Tunisian constitution – voted in controversial new language that promises to protect women’s rights as “man’s partner.”
