The Tunisian law on violence against women: advocacy and reform (original) (raw)
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Violence against women and Tunisian feminism: Advocacy, policy, and politics in an Arab context
Informed theoretically by feminist sociological and political science research on women's social movements and women's engagement with public policy, this article examines the advocacy and political work of women's rights groups in Tunisia in the area of violence against women. It locates the origins of the concern about this particular social problem, shows how the women's rights groups worked with government agencies as well as transnational feminist networks to raise awareness and institute policy changes, and examines how their research, advocacy, and lobbying efforts have evolved. Drawing on the personal experience of the first author, who has been a longstanding participant in the Tunisian women's rights movement, as well as on various publications by ATFD and AFTURD and related documentary data, the article shows how a relatively small feminist movement has been able to leverage its relationships with other civil society organizations to influence changes in policies, laws, and public debates.
For decades, thousands of Tunisian women suffered from systematic sexual violence at the hands of state agents, with many now seeking justice and public recognition of those crimes following the 2011 Jasmine revolution. While Tunisia's process of transitional justice created an opportunity to construct new narratives of women's rights, it paradoxically created more barriers to holding the state accountable for its violations, mainly because of the centrality of the state hegemonic narratives of women's rights in the legal and political process of transitional justice. In this article, I investigate the limitations and gendered paradoxes inherent in the process of transitional justice in post-revolutionary Tunisia. Focusing on the Truth and Dignity Commission established in 2014, I explore how gender-based violence featured into the formal procedural mechanisms of transitional justice, and the degree to which women's voices were incorporated into the making of the rules and procedures related to providing compensations and rehabilitation to victims of gender-based violence. Furthermore, I analyze how official narratives of gender-based violence committed by the state enforced traditional gendered categories, perpetuating the state's prerogative powers over its citizens and reflecting the requirements of Tunisia's fragile political settlement. Through such an approach, I hope to develop a deeper understanding of the role that nationalist narratives on women's rights play in the context of transitional justice and suggest viable recommendations for building accountable state institutions that could effectively address gender inequality as an essential goal of democratic governance.
Tunisian Women's Rights before and after the Revolution (2013)
Nouri Gana (ed.), The Making of the Tunisian Revolution: Contexts, Architects, Prospects (pp. 224-251), 2013
This book chapter offers an overview of challenges and opportunities for Tunisian women's rights before and after Tunisia's 2011 revolution. From Nouri Gana’s introduction: “Monica Marks deftly weaves together the ways in which the issue of women’s rights has been used and abused by Bourguiba and Ben Ali to maintain their hold on power. Counter-revolutionary forces, along with a host of opposition parties, have similarly wheeled out the issue of women’s rights in order to show how bad Ennadha would be for women despite Ennahda’s endorsement of the Personal Status Code of 1957 and of a new constitution that does not include Sharia law. What has muddled the waters even further, however, is the rise to prominence of Salafism, one of the most mediatized phenomena in postrevolutionary Tunisia, especially insofar as it directly affects women’s rights.”
Women's rights in Tunisia and the democratic renegotiation of an authoritarian legacy
Since the 2011 revolution, Tunisia has been negotiating what it is to become, a process of rebirth in which women’s rights is key. The ongoing debates reflect a confrontation between the feminist policies of Habib Bourguiba (the first president of the Tunisian republic) and alternative notions of women’s rights. In this article, I examine the debates that are currently taking place in Tunisia. I argue that the topic of women’s rights is crucial in the power struggle between the political elites within Tunisia. It is symbolic of the much wider battle over the future of the country. Moreover, the legislative outcomes of the debates are indicative for the post-revolutionary political dynamics, showing the strength of so-called secularists.
Equal or complementary? Women in the new Tunisian Constitution after the Arab Spring
The Journal of North African Studies, 2014
The Arab Spring has inaugurated a new form of politics that represents a shift from a 'politics from above' to a 'politics from below' in regard to gender policy in Tunisia. Discourse surrounding state policy on gender, formerly the purview of elite groups, has recently been shaped and driven by popular organizations and associations. This article draws on Habermas to argue that the shift has been facilitated by the emergence of a new public sphere and engaged civil society following the fall of the Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime in 2011. To demonstrate the emergence and diversity of Tunisian civil society, we focus on the promulgation of a new constitution and the debate surrounding Article 28, which has been contested by some Tunisians as reducing women's status to 'complementary.' A discussion of women's status in the history of Tunisian family law, especially in the popularly valorized Code of Personal Status, illustrates how women's rights were historically expanded as a top down policy or 'politics from above.' We juxtapose this historical context with the present period of transition and constitution writing since 2011. An examination of quotations from Tunisian women, both opponents and supporters of Article 28, demonstrates the shift in Tunisia from a 'politics from above' to a 'politics from below' as women's groups are making demands upon the state and voicing their concerns in ways that have profoundly influenced the tenor of debates around gender politics in the country.
Tunisia at the Forefront of the Arab World: Two Waves of Gender Legislation
Starting in the 1950s and ever since, Tunisia has implemented gender legislation expanding women's rights in family law. The ground breaking phase occurred with the promulgation of the Code of Personal Status in the mid-1950s during the formation of a national state in the aftermath of independencefrom French colonial rule. Another major phase occurred in the 1990s with citizenship law reforms as embodied in the Tunisian Code ofNationality. As a result ofthese two majorphases, Tunisia has been at theforefront of"womanfriendly" legislative changes in the Arab-Muslim world and is widely recognized as such. At a time when issues of women's rights are not only highly debated, but sometimes violently contested in Muslim countries, the Tunisian case requires examination. This Article documents the two major phases of reforms in favor of women's rights in Tunisia and outlines the conditions that permitted or encouraged the continuity over the last halfcentury. The first wave of reforms in the 1950s transformed the legal construction ofgender roles within the family. The second wave in the 1990s redefined the conditions for the transmission of Tunisian citizenship. In painting social change in broad strokes, I analyze the initial and pioneering phase of the 1950s as a reform resulting from the actions ofa newlyformed national state interested in building a new society at the end of colonial rule. By contrast, the role of women's agency came into play in Tunisia
During the anti-regime uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, women from all walks of life were as ready as men to take to the streets to protest against the ineptitude and transgressions of their countries' governments. Their courage was particularly noteworthy given that they suffered not only the violence of the regimes' attempts to suppress protests by force, as did their male counterparts, but also a systematic targeting by security forces who attempted to break the women's spirits through attacks on their honour and bodily integrity. The female presence and agency in the Arab Spring encouraged activists in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to expect an equitable role for women in the political transition processes that followed the fall of the authoritarian regimes in those countries. However, the female input in those political transitions has been scant. Moreover, in all three countries, established women's rights are increasingly under attack and violence against women is on the rise. This article applies a gendered perspective to explore the upheavals of the Arab Spring and the political transitions in the three countries, and inquires into the insecurities that women have suffered since early 2011.