Since the December 2010 revolution in Tunisia and protests across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) began, Tunisian women have played an unprecedented part in the protests. Habib Bourguiba began instituting secular freedoms for women in 1956, such as access to higher education, the right to file for divorce, and certain job opportunities. Women in Tunisia enjoy certain freedoms and rights that are denied to women in neighboring countries, although the social norms have shifted since 2011.
Demographics As of 2008, the U.S. Population Reference Bureau reported that Tunisia's population of women between the ages of 15 and 49 was 3,000,000. By 2015, there will be 3,100,000 women of the same age bracket in the country. The life expectancy for women, from birth, is 79 years (men in Tunisia have a life expectancy of 72 years).
History When Tunisia was still under French protectorate, the majority of Tunisian women were uneducated and performed the domestic duties required by husbands and fathers. However, with the onset of the country's independence movement, a voice for equality between men and women emerged. In fact, by the early 20th century, many urban families were educating their daughters. When Tunisia regained its independence in 1956, the republic's founder—Habib Bourguiba—discussed repeatedly the need to include all persons in Tunisian society.
In 1916, Juliette Smaja Zérah became Tunisia's first female lawyer after being admitted to the Tunis bar...
In 1956, The Code of Personal Status (Tunisia) was enacted—a document that has undergone heavy reform since its inception. This document has abolished polygamy and repudiation, enabled women to ask for divorce, enacted a minimum age for marriage and ordered the consent of both spouses before marriage. Moreover, women earned the right to vote in 1957 and in 1959, women were able to seek office. The Constitution of Tunisia promulgates "the principle of equality" which has been applied favorably for women within the judiciary system, enabling them to enter untraditional job sectors (for example medicine with Habiba Djilani the first female surgeon, the army and engineering) as well as open bank accounts and establish businesses. In 1959, women were able to access birth control. In 1965 a law was passed that allowed women to have abortions as part of a population control policy. Abortion on request was legalized in October 1973.
In 1993, feminists and women's organizations’ lobbying efforts resulted in certain modifications to the Code of Personal Status. The modifications stated that a wife was not obliged to obey her husband, but did require her to "share part of the financial burden of the family". Despite releasing women from obedience to their husbands, they were now required to equally contribute to managing family affairs. However, a vague clause within the Code requires women to "deal with their husbands in accordance with custom and tradition." This clause makes it difficult for women to assert their independence (and thus ability to contribute to her family's financial burden) because 'tradition' and 'custom' are often used to reinforce a woman's subservience. After the Association des femmes tunisiennes pour la recherche et le développement and the Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates (ATFD) presented a document in which they demanded the full implementation of the agreement, the Tunisian government ratified the agreement on September 20, 1985.
As for the reservations shown by Tunisia at the signing of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1979, they show that those in power have not yet decided to take the step of equality. The agreement was signed on July 24, 1980, but with reservations, like other Muslim countries, concerning a few paragraphs of sections 15, 16 and 29 on the grounds of their contradictions with the provisions of the Code of Personal Status and the Quran.Organisation des Nations unies, Traités multilatéraux déposés auprès du Secrétaire général, éd. United Nations Publications, New York, 2004, p. 246 « La Tunisie va adhérer au protocole additionnel de la convention de l’ONU », Agence France-Presse, 8 mars 2008
To mark the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the implementation of the Code of Personal Status (Tunisia), president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali announced two Bills that were adopted by the Chamber of Deputies of Tunisia on May 8, 2007. The first reinforces the legal housing rights of mothers having custody of children, and the second establishes a minimum age for marriage, at 18 years, for both sexes despite the fact that the actual average age at marriage had already surpassed 25 years for women and 30 years for men.Olivia Marsaud, « Cinquante ans d’indépendance féminine », Radio France internationale, August 13, 2006
In matters related to motherhood, Tunisia is often considered as a country open to change.Samir Amin, L’économie du Maghreb, éd. de Minuit, Paris, 1966Ridha Boukraa, « Notes sur le planning familial et pouvoir politique au Maghreb », Revue tunisienne de sciences sociales, n°46, 1976
On the occasion of the announcement on March 8, 2008 that the government would adhere to an additional protocol of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, coinciding with the International Women's Day, the president of the ATFD, Khadija Cherif, described the process as "positive but insufficient" and said it would continue "to advocate for the lifting of reservations that emptied the Convention of its meaning".
Tunisia observes several national holidays dedicated to women: International Women's Day (March 8)Monique Pontault [sous la dir. de], Femmes en francophonie, coll. Les Cahiers de la Francophonie, n°8, éd. L’Harmattan, Paris, 2000, p. 207 and August 13, the anniversary date of the implementation of the Code of Personal Status (Tunisia), which has become a public holiday called National Women's Day.Sophie Bessis, « Le féminisme institutionnel en Tunisie : Ben Ali et la question féminine », CLIO HFS, n°9/1999, 22 mai 2006
Since September 2017, Tunisian Muslim women are allowed to marry non-Muslims, that would scrap the old decree which requires the husbands to convert to Islam in order to complete an inter-faith marriage.
A desire for modernisation or a political necessity? In Tunisia, the pursuit of feminist politics is all the more necessary since it is the main support to the good image of the country in Europe.Michel Camau et Vincent Geisser, Habib Bourguiba. La trace et l’héritage, éd. Karthala, Paris, 2004, p. 108 In effect, even though the Economic growth is not negligible, it does not stand out from other countries in North Africa such as Morocco; as well, the suppression of the free speech and the political opposition in Tunisia have long tarnished the country's reputation abroad. The status of women remains a domain in which Tunisia, while under Bourguiba as under Ben Ali, could vindicate its uniqueness.
Colette Juillard-Beaudan believes that Tunisian women, And this type of propaganda bore fruit as the country enjoyed, during the reign of Bourguiba, a solid reputation of national and civil secular in a region that more often consists of military dictatorships or monarchies connected to religion,Franck Frégosi et Malika Zeghal, Religion et politique au Maghreb : les exemples tunisien et marocain , éd. Institut français de relations internationales, Paris, mars 2005, p. 7 as the CSP was itself declared in an authoritarian manner, since it was not debated publicly or in the Tunisian Constituent Assembly.Paola Gandolfi et Moncef Djaziri, Libia oggi, éd. Casa editrice il Ponte, Bologne, 2005, p. 37
On February 9, 1994, a Tunisian Women's Day was organized by the Senate of France under the slogan "Une modernité assumée, la Tunisie" (in English: Tunisia: Embracing Modernity). Shortly after a debate organized in June 1997 in the European Parliament on the situation of human rights in Tunisia, Tunisians were dispatched to Strasbourg to give Europe another image of their country.
A series of laudatory articles followed in the French press on the condition of women in Tunisia. In October 1997, during Ben Ali's official visit to France, the Tunisian regime's defenders also cited the status of women, while ignoring the criticisms of the organizations defending human rights:
In August 1994, during a conference devoted to women and the family, the Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates (ATFD) denounced the ambiguity of the forces in power and the use of religion to control the status of women in the country, criticizing foremost "the patriarchal oppression of women". Moreover, women attempted to rebel against the official discourse were quickly called to order, notably through the bias of a Tunisian press rigorously controlled by the authorities. The president of the ATFD, the lawyer Sana Ben Achour, explained in March 2010 that her organization was living in a She denounced among other things, the "police inclosure" of the ATFD headquarters and its women's university, and the fact that the association was prevented from staging a theatre production that was supposed to mark the March 8 International Women's Day.
In this context, filmmaker Moufida Tlatli — made famous by her film The Silences of the Palace (1994) — was heavily criticized« Traînée dans la boue » selon les propos de Sophie Bessis, « Le féminisme institutionnel en Tunisie », CLIO HFS, n°9/1999, 22 mai 2006 in the Tunisian magazine Réalités for having shown her scepticism towards the supposed feminism of Islam during a television program broadcast in France in October 1994:
On August 13, 2003, the 47th anniversary of the enactment of the CSP, the Ligue tunisienne des droits de l'homme (in English: Tunisian League of Human Rights) declared :
Fashion Prior to the 2011 revolution, Tunisia restricted women's right to wear the hijab. Even though the population of Tunisia is 99% Muslim, and women in the Muslim world commonly wear hijabs, the governments of both Ben Ali and Habib Bourguiba pursued the eradication of public Islamic traditions, including hijab. In 1981 Habib Bourguiba ratified law no. 108 effectively banning Tunisian women from wearing hijab in state offices. In 1985, he went further and ratified law 108 extending this ban to educational establishments.
During Ben Ali's regime, the government began cracking down on females wearing the hijab. In 2008, Amnesty International reported that women were forced to remove their hijab before being allowed into schools, universities, workplaces and some were even forced to remove it on the street. The report goes further stating that scarfed women were denied entry to the Tunis International Book Fair and at times were taken to police stations and made to sign a written commitment to stop wearing the hijab. "Some of those who refused were assaulted by police officers".
While recent changes under the new government of the Ennahda Movement have lifted restrictions on wearing the hijab, a broader shift in social values toward Islamism has caused women to feel more restricted in many ways. A number of women complain that they can no longer wear skirts because of harassment by men. Additionally, they state that hijabs have become a social requirement instead of an option.Jamie Dettmer, Tunisia’s Dark Turn, The Daily Beast, 17 March 2013.
Education