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.
The new electoral law unilaterally decreed by president Kais Saied spurred outcry among women’s rights advocates in Tunisia. In protest of the new legislation, a feminist movement formed of nine associations staged a sit-in before the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE). As these activists voice demands for absolute parity between men and women in the public sphere, the president’s backwards approach to equality threatens to reverse women’s political gains.
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.
On October 14, journalists and women’s association members put their heads and pens together to draft a Declaration of Principles on Media Coverage and Journalistic Practices concerning Violence against Women. The same day, Alaa Chebbi is denounced by activists for “violating press laws” and “normalizing violence against women and little girls […] just to make a buzz.”
It’s the story of a mother with sad eyes, who speaks to you with her hand clenched to her chest, and of her daughter Rachida, twenty-nine, who has now been behind bars for three years. Rachida, employed at the age of 15 as a live-in housekeeper at one of the Trabelsi family dwellings.
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